Dentist Imprisoned 8 Years Without Trial
From: Shyster (shyster_at_lawyers.com)
Date: 12/17/04
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Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:33:38 GMT
Nearly 8 years in prison without a trial
Phyllis Schlafly (archive)
December 13, 2004 | Print | Send
"I want to go to trial on Monday; I've been locked up for nearly eight
years," declared Charles Thomas Sell. "The federal court has no evidence,
they have no witnesses. I want my trial one week from today. I am not
incompetent in any way, shape or form."
His statements rang true to bystanders attending his hearing on Nov. 22 in
the federal courthouse in St. Louis. Whatever happened to the right of an
accused to have a speedy trial?
Once a successful dentist in St. Louis County who treated many indigent
patients, Sell was accused of Medicaid fraud in 1997. Although he has never
hurt anyone, and a federal court held that he poses no danger to those
around him, prison officials frequently placed him in solitary confinement
for periods that totaled nearly two years.
Prison officials tried to drug Sell, allegedly to make him fit for trial,
and lower courts ruled in favor of mandatory drugging of this non-convicted,
non-dangerous, nonviolent prisoner. The federal government fought all the
way to the U.S. Supreme Court for the power to forcibly drug Sell and, even
though it lost its case there, the government continued to imprison and
prevent him from receiving proper medical care.
The forced medication was designed to correct Sell's attitude toward the
government. Sell seemed to think the government was out to get him, and the
government wanted to drug him to get him to change his mind.
Is this occurring in the United States of America?
Psychiatrists were frequently employed by the Soviet Union to cover up
atrocities and silence critics, but U.S. veterans who fought against the
Communists in Korea and Vietnam never expected such tactics to be used by
their own government.
Earlier this year, a government psychologist declared Sell mentally fit for
trial. Apparently, that medical opinion was unsatisfactory to Sell's
persecutors, and to everyone's surprise that government psychologist
reversed his diagnosis without re-examining him, and declared Sell unfit for
trial.
An independent psychiatrist then confirmed Sell's own view that he was fit
for trial, and the court agreed and scheduled a trial for Nov. 29. But on
Nov. 22, lawyers insisted Sell was not ready for trial and persuaded a judge
to cancel it.
The lawyers argued that Sell is not competent to stand trial because he
insists on talking about the abuse he has suffered in prison, abuse that
could be proved by prison videos the government is keeping secret. The
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons filed a motion for the court
to release these tapes, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also intervened to
demand their public release.
But it appears that the government is doing everything it can to prevent a
trial of Sell that would expose the record of this case.
In investigative reporting worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, Carolyn Tuft of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed on Nov. 23 some of the evidence on the
still-secret videos. She reported that two videotapes of Sell show him being
stripped, scalded, humiliated and brutalized in a way that sounds shockingly
similar to the abuse of inmates by their U.S. captors at Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq.
Is there no accountability for this type of government misconduct? Instead
of investigating and punishing the wrongdoers, federal officials are moving
heaven and earth to avoid a public trial that could expose the tapes and the
fact that a man has been held in prison so long without trial.
The only one in the courtroom making any sense at what should have been the
final hearing before trial was Sell himself, who stood up to assert his
constitutional rights. His plea was to no avail, as the judge ordered him
shipped to North Carolina for yet another examination by a government
psychiatrist.
By now Sell knows the game all too well, and he announced in open court that
he would not submit to another sham mental evaluation. Nevertheless, he will
be transported cross-country to find another government psychiatrist to
deliver the desired diagnosis to save officials from public scrutiny.
We've all seen the pictures of Abu Ghraib, so why can't we see pictures of
prisoner abuse in the federal prison at Springfield, Mo.? Congress should
demand the immediate release of the shocking videos showing the mistreatment
of Sell and also order a full accounting of the taxpayers' money spent by
the government to keep a man in prison nearly eight years without trial.
©2004 Copley News Service
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/ps20041213.shtml
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