Pubdate: Sat, 16 Jun 2001
Source: Herald, The (WA)
Copyright: 2001 The Daily Herald Co.
Contact:  http://www.heraldnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/190
Author: Jim Haley, Herald Writer
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n606/a07.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n615/a03.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n634/a02.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n646/a07.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n679/a08.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n685/a01.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n694/a09.html?5443 ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n727/a03.html?7905 ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n741/a10.html?1359 ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n751/a01.html?8761 ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n755/a04.html?8761 ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n783/a04.html?9846 ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n787/a10.html?75338

EX-SHERIFF NOW CHAMPIONS CAUSE OF CHRONIC PAIN

SNOHOMISH -- Former Sheriff Patrick Murphy still feels physical pain, but a 
jury's decision last month has greatly eased the emotional ache he's 
carried since he was charged with a crime in 1995 and booked into his own jail.

Jurors not only awarded him and his family $2.8 million in damages, but, in 
his mind, that act vindicated him and partly restored his reputation, he 
said earlier this week at his residence here.

Before that, he was shunned by some he knew, people who would look the 
other way when they saw him on the street.

The former longtime police chief of the city of Snohomish said the jury's 
verdict changed the tone.

"It's nice to have people willing to stop by," he said. He received 
literally hundreds of cards, letters and e-mail messages after the May 1 
jury decision.

His career in law enforcement abruptly ended when he was charged. His 
reputation was sullied, and it probably hasn't recovered enough to try and 
seek that office again, although his brief stint as sheriff was the 
fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

"In law enforcement the only thing you have is your reputation," Murphy 
said. "That's the only thing you ever gain. When it's taken away from you, 
it leaves you with nothing."

The verdict improved his reputation somewhat, he said. "But I don't think 
it's been entirely rehabilitated."

Murphy sued the state Board of Pharmacy, alleging that it negligently 
disclosed his prescription records to Snohomish County officials in June 
1995. It did so after a pharmacist complained about Murphy obtaining a 
large number of prescriptions for narcotic drugs by different physicians. 
He had them filled at several pharmacies.

The medication was to counter a series of injuries, in particular chronic 
jaw pain.

Murphy was appointed sheriff in early 1995 to fill a vacancy. He stepped 
down eight months later amid a barrage of publicity, criminal charges of 
fraudulently obtaining prescription drugs and the loss of an election to 
now-Sheriff Rick Bart.

The jaw pain is from a condition known as temporomandibular joint disorder, 
or TMJ. The injury occurred in 1988 when, as police chief, he went to the 
aid of a female Community Transit bus driver who was being attacked.

 From then on, he required medication in order for him to function 
normally, he said.

"For some reason, in my mind, I felt after we were vindicated, I'd feel 
better," said Murphy. But the physical pain continues.

The four-week trial and verdict thrust Murphy into a national spotlight. 
He's become a poster boy for associations representing people which 
chronic, intractable pain. The television news magazine "60 Minutes" has 
contacted him and may do a segment on the case this fall, Murphy's lawyer's 
office said.

Tom Greenly of Sacramento, Calif., national coordinator for the National 
Foundation for the Treatment of Pain, defined chronic and intractable pain 
as that which is excruciating, constant and incurable. It is pain so severe 
that it dominates a person's every conscious moment.

Greenly said he and his organization watched the Murphy case closely, and 
the former sheriff's situation will help educate lawmakers and the medical 
community about the need by some people for heavy doses of pain medication 
in order to resume normal lives.

"I believe Patrick Murphy stood up for the rights of all chronic, 
intractable patients," Greenly said. "I'm very thankful to Sheriff Murphy 
... who was willing to stand up in a court and make his life transparent."

The trial itself was tough, Murphy said.

"It was the most horrific thing I ever imagined to go through. Not so much 
for me, but to have my family go through it," Murphy said. He said it was 
hard, sometimes, to watch family members testify and have to deal with 
touchy questions.

If he gets any money from the case, some will go back into a retirement 
fund that was depleted after he lost his job and hasn't been able to work 
again, he said. Some will go to pain groups like Greenly's, he said.

Susan Murphy, who saw her husband's health problems firsthand, said the 
pain groups see the case as "a huge step for people getting the right kind 
of treatment for pain."

Those who charged her husband, she said, had no inkling of what it was like.

"If you don't experience it, if you don't live it," she said, "you don't 
understand."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom