Prosecutors cite the loss of 2 witnesses. The Orange cop says he did nothing wrong in the drug case.

The State Attorney's Office decided Friday not to pursue a perjury charge against an Orange County deputy sheriff accused of lying to a jury in a drug case.

Kevin Carter, 46, was arrested in May because he told a jury in January 2005 that an anonymous stranger at a bus stop tipped him off to drug-dealing behind a Pine Hills liquor store. A sheriff's investigation determined that the tipster was actually a suspected prostitute Carter threatened with arrest if she failed to cooperate.

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It's normal to feel compassion for people so overcome by chronic pain from health problems that they break laws to obtain large quantities of the medicine they need, then, incredibly, are branded drug traffickers and sentenced to prison for at least 25 years.

But in pardoning Richard Paey of Hudson last week, Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet let their compassion trump the state's rule of law.

Instead of just commuting Paey's sentence - which would have been fair considering he spent 3 1/2 years in prison for illegally obtaining large quantities of prescription drugs he needs to make it through the day - the state's top officials fully pardoned him, erasing the 15 charges a jury convicted him of. Even Paey and his lawyers knew a pardon was a stretch - they didn't request one.

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The impact of alcohol and other drug use permeates every facet of daily life. Assemble 10 individuals in a room and four will be directly impacted by substance abuse, whether it be a child expelled from school for drug use, a parent self-medicating, a spouse who lost a job because of heavy drinking, a loved one killed by a drunken driver or an overdose in the emergency room. Another three of those 10 will reveal that an uncle, aunt, friend or minister suffered the consequences of a substance-abuse problem.

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A Man Tries to Return to Guatemala, But the $59,000 He Saved Working Here Is Confiscated

MIAMI - After nine years of washing dishes illegally in South Florida, Pedro Zapeta decided his work here was done.

He packed what little he had in the way of clothes and then filled his duffel with stacks of neatly rubber-banded cash. In all, $59,000, every penny he had saved.

It was time to go home to Guatemala and build the home for the family he hadn't seen in more than a decade.

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A Heroic Spouse

I had the opportunity to meet Linda Paey, wife of Richard Paey, several months ago. I have been fortunate to be a very small part of the lives of her and her daughters.

Linda is one of the most upbeat women I have ever met. I'm sure her heart has been breaking ever since her husband was arrested several years ago. She is a model of love and devotion, not only to her husband, but also to her three children.

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What could the Florida Parole Commission have been thinking when it urged the Cabinet to deny Richard Paey's petition? Isn't three years of incarceration enough for the real crime that was committed here - writing one's own prescriptions?

The Florida Legislature needs to change this dumb law and we need a new Parole Commission. I'm sick and tired of flushing tax dollars down the toilet for something as shameful as this miscarriage of justice.

Dr. Kenneth Linn, J.D. LL.M., Dunedin



[end]

Imagine you are forced to put on a pair of short shorts every morning when you wake up because if long pants were to lightly brush your skin during the day, the sensation would be similar to a thousand spiders crawling up your legs.

Imagine your eyesight is stranger than you remember it, as there is excess pressure on your eyes forcing you to use mainly your central vision. Imagine that every sensation you feel is a bit off, your body twitches because of unknown sources. Imagine that no matter how good food may smell, you never want to taste it.

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The impact of alcohol and other drug use permeates every facet of daily life. Assemble 10 individuals in a room and four will be directly impacted by substance abuse, whether it be a child expelled from school for drug use, a parent self-medicating, a spouse who lost a job due to heavy drinking, a loved one killed by a drunken driver or an overdose in the emergency room. Another three of those 10 will reveal that an uncle, aunt, friend or minister suffered the consequences of a substance abuse problem. The troubles associated with substance abuse cut equally across all segments of society from the rich, famous and powerful to the homeless person living on the street. In all of these situations, there remains one common thread - -- substance abuse robs each individual affected by its consequences, directly or indirectly, of a prosperous and full life.

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Regarding "Tonight, You're Home" Wife Tells Pardoned Man" (front page, Sept 21):

As a chronic pain patient dependent for 20 years on narcotic pain medication for pain minimization, I can understand the desperation for the need of immediate accessibility of my prescription meds, legitimately prescribed by my pain management doctor. 1, too, was in a car accident then left with a paralyzed left arm after a botched surgery. I've had seven surgeries on my spine and six on my leg. As well, I have severe fibromyalgia. I live and understand pain.

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The case of Richard Paey of Pasco County, who was pardoned by Florida's governor and Cabinet last week, is a great illustration of the role of clemency.

Paey was found guilty of possessing 700 Percocets, a pain drug, enough to trigger the state's trafficking laws.

Never mind that he was not a drug trafficker, or that he had the drug because he was crippled by pain from disease and past injury.

A jury said that by the letter of the law, he was guilty of trafficking. An appeals court ruled that it had no choice but to uphold the verdict.

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Sitting in the prison van taking him from the Tomoka Correctional Institution to his home, his wife, his salvation in Hudson, Richard Paey began to experience something odd , something he hadn't noticed about himself the past four years of his life.

"In prison, no one ever looks up," Paey said. "Inmates rarely look up at the sun."

Now, sitting in the van, Richard Paey found himself gazing out the window, and slowly he began to raise his eyes as the landscape passed by.

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At first blush it would seem a literal no-brainer that the state Board of Executive Clemency shouldn't have to take but a few moments to realize the defendant pleading for mercy and justice before them has about as much business being in prison as a Soviet era dissident.

But then again, had you told Richard Paey that he would wind up in the big house - in the United States, in the 21st century - doing a 25-year stretch for simply being a very infirm man the idea would have been laughable.

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HUDSON - Tomoka Correctional Institution was his fourth prison in nearly four years. But Richard Paey never considered himself "institutionalized."

Not until two weeks ago in the chow hall.

There was a roach in Paey's oatmeal. His fellow inmates just shrugged.

Gulp it down, they told him. And he did.

"They began saying, 'Just eat it, at least we know it's fresh,'" Paey said. "Afterward I began to think, I wasn't being funny ...

"It's like an apathy, like you don't care."

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Self-Medication

Family Cries and Begs, and Governor Tosses Trafficking Conviction

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Richard Paey, a victim in the war on drugs, was granted a full, immediate and unexpected pardon by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the Cabinet Thursday, allowing him to get out of prison and be reunited with his family. Paey, 49, has spent the past 3 1/2 years in prison after he was convicted on drug trafficking charges in a 1997 arrest for filling out fake prescriptions and possessing about 700 Percocet narcotic painkillers. He was to be imprisoned for 25 years.

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HUDSON - The relief on Richard Paey's face was obvious Thursday evening as he was helped from a government vehicle in the driveway of a home he had not seen in more than three years.

Amid family, neighbors and a small group of media, the 48-year-old spoke softly. "In the immortal words of Dorothy, 'there's no place like home.'

"Freedom is really everything, probably more than life itself," he said. "This is a sign that America is a great country. The system goofed up, but we're willing to address that."

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Crist, Cabinet Display Uncommon Humanity

Government in general is not known for compassion. Nor is wisdom a word that people necessarily associate with the political process.

But on Thursday, Gov. Charlie Crist and members of the Florida Cabinet - Attorney General Bill McCollum, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson - displayed compassion and wisdom so extraordinary it was breathtaking.

In their capacity as the state clemency board, they granted a full pardon to an imprisoned Pasco County man with chronic and severe pain, and for whom the law simply failed.

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A traffic crash that left Richard Paey in such pain that he forged prescriptions ultimately led him to a wheelchair and then a prison cell, where he was sentenced to 25 years as a drug trafficker.

On Thursday, as Paey's attorney, wife and four children wept, Gov. Charlie Crist and the Cabinet said it was all too much. They unanimously and unexpectedly voted to give Paey a full pardon and released him from prison about five hours later.

'It is unbelievable. It is like Dorothy going home. I was thinking that on the way down here, 'There is no place like home.' That has been on my mind for . . . 1,165 days I have been in prison," Paey said after a guard wheeled him out of Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach.

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Governor and Cabinet Rule a Pain Patient Shouldn't Be in Prison.

TALLAHASSEE -- Richard Paey wanted to be a lawyer and then a cop, but the searing pain in his legs robbed him of that. He settled for being a son, husband and father.

Then the state said he was a drug trafficker. After a decade he was convicted on the third try and sentenced to 25 years in prison. But the drugs were for Paey's own chronic pain, the result of a car crash, back surgery and multiple sclerosis.

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ISSUE: The death toll from overdoses is rising across South Florida.

South Florida isn't exactly winning the drug war. In fact, in the void of a concerted strategy on the front lines, investigators are out-gunned, and the body count is rising.

According to a recent South Florida Sun-Sentinel story, more people died in Palm Beach County from cocaine-related overdoses than in any other county in Florida last year, when the death toll marked a 39 percent climb over 2002 figures -- despite a slight drop in fatalities from 2005.

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I am writing in regard to overcrowding of jails and prisons. I will narrow it down to Marion County.

Our jail is overcrowded to the point of people sleeping on the floors, and expansions being made on a regular basis to accommodate more inmates. Is jail the answer?

A lot of these people are in there for violation of probation, of recurring mistakes. Why don't we, as taxpayers, help these people with their behavior problems instead of throwing them in jail, where they can learn more tricks and be a team player with their fellow inmates?

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