Quadriplegic man dies while jailed for pot possession

[Twisted Intestine]

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4050.html

 

Washington DC judge sentences paralyzed first-time pot offender to 10 days in jail - he dies after five.

 

 

A young Jonathan Magbie (in wheelchair) meets with President Reagan in 1982.

Jonathan Magbie, a 27-year old quadriplegic resident of Maryland, died in a Washington DC jail on September 24, after being sentenced to 10 days imprisonment for possession of marijuana.

 

The marijuana conviction was a first offence for Magbie, who was paralyzed from the neck down at age 4 after his school bus was hit by a drunk driver. Since then Magbie had been under almost constant nursing care, and got around on a chin-operated wheelchair. (A year after his injury, a young Magbie had met President Ronald Reagan during a White House ceremony commemorating National Respiratory Therapy Week.)

 

Four grams of cocaine were also allegedly found on Magbie, along with a loaded gun. The driver of the car, Bernard Beckett, pleaded guilty to the gun charges, saying he had placed the gun on Magbie to avoid a search. Magbie pleaded guilty to the marijuana.

 

Although Magbie was not charged for either the gun or the cocaine, presiding Judge Judith Retchin listed them both as factors in giving the jail sentence. She also chastised Magbie for honestly saying that he would probably continue using marijuana, because it made him "feel better." (Marijuana is well-known to reduce the spasticity and chronic pain associated with quadriplegia.)

 

Both prosecution and defence attorneys had agreed that the appropriate sentence for Magbie was probation, but Retchin ignored their joint recommendation and decided to give him the jail time, to teach him a lesson.

 

Judicial homicide

 

At sentencing, Judge Retchin incorrectly stated that the DC jail would be able to accommodate Magbie's medical needs. In fact, the jail actually didn't have the respirator Magbie needed to breathe, nor did they have the equipment needed to suction his lungs free of fluid.

 

After two days, the jail transferred Magbie to the Greater Southeast Community Hospital, which handles inmate hospitalizations, but the Hospital soon transferred him to the Correctional Treatment Facility (CTF), another corrections department unit near the jail.

 

Initial media reports claimed that the CTF told the hospital they couldn't meet Magbie's needs, but that the hospital would not take him back. CTF then apparently asked Judge Retchin to order the hospital to take Magbie, but Retchin refused. (Later, hospital administrators denied that the CTF had ever asked them to take Magbie back.)

 

According to media reports, Magbie's mother and lawyer begged CTF staff to let her bring her son his ventilator, and after two days they were finally told that she could bring it in at 10am. Magbie's mother arrived at 9:30am, and waited 45 minutes before a doctor came to see her. She gave him Magbie's ventilator, and then asked guards if she could visit her son, but was told that she couldn't because she did not have a formal appointment.

 

What the doctor and guards didn't tell Magbie's mother was that her son wasn't even in the prison at the time. Hours before his mother's arrival, Magbie had a medical emergency and had been transported to the hospital by ambulance. The doctor and guards all knew, but chose not to tell his mother. "If I had known, I could have told them what might have been wrong with him, and how they could help him," she said later.

 

It wasn't until later that night that Magbie's mother received a phone call saying that her son had been hospitalized, and was now dead.

 

Only one week later, Chief Judge Rufus King III told the media that the investigation of Magbie's death was closed. King added that he would be meeting with corrections officials to review their ability to deal with medical conditions in jail, and perhaps institute more training for judges.

 

 

Loretta Nall with banner, outside the courthouse

Protest & vigil

 

Magbie's death produced some scathing editorials in the Washington Post, but received virtually no national coverage.

 

The only formal protest against Magbie's death was a nine-day vigil put on by Loretta Nall, leader of the US Marijuana Party. On October 5, Nall and three others stood across from the courthouse and unfurled a banner reading "Judge Retchin guilty of judicial homicide."

 

(Coincidentally, the first day of Nall's vigil also saw over a dozen arrests at a separate med-pot protest in Washington DC. Organized by Americans for Safe Access, med-pot patients and activists were arrested on the steps of the US Department of Health and Human Services, as they peacefully protested against the federal government's claim that marijuana has no medical use.)

 

Nall and her supporters maintained the vigil outside the courthouse where Magbie had been convicted, and spoke to many people going into the building, as well as other passers-by.

 

One of the most interesting encounters was with a federal marshal who walked up to Nall and said hello. "I returned his greeting," reported Nall, "all the while wondering what was about to happen and bracing for a head-cracking or some such brutality. Shockingly though, he began to tell me that he was the marshal who had been in charge of transporting Jonathan Magbie to the jail."

 

Nall talked to the marshal for some time. "He said when he saw Magbie and his condition he was shocked and upset that a person like that could be sent to jail. He said he felt like the lowest piece of scum on earth for having to drive him to jail and that he felt deep down that something horrible might happen. He told me when he read the story in the Washington Post a few days later he broke down and cried like a baby. He said he felt responsible to a degree but that as a federal marshal he had to do what he was told."

 

"I thanked him mightily for coming over and talking to me," added Nall. "I told him how he had redeemed his fellow officers by taking a few minutes to share his part of the Magbie story with me, and by being respectful and having the courage to stand in front of that courthouse in full uniform and say the things he said. He smiled, thanked me for having the courage to speak out and said with a wink 'If anyone asks I told you to move on.'"

 

Nall was disappointed by the lack of support she received during her time in Washington DC. "Aside from Marc Emery, who funded my trip, a few dedicated people from the Cannabis Culture forums who made the trip here, no-one here gives a damn about what happened. The only people who were brave enough to come and talk to us and show any support were the black defendants going in and out of the courthouse."

 

Nall was also a little bitter about the lack of backing from other allied organizations. "Of all the drug policy reform groups based here in DC, only the Drug Policy Alliance and the Marijuana Policy Project offered any support to us in the form of bodies or printed materials. None of the others even bothered to put in a five minute appearance. What a shame."

 

Power & racism

 

The Washington Post editorialized that it was Magbie's lack of connection to "this town's rich, famous or influential," that resulted in his stiff sentence. Nall was far more blunt, claiming that racism played a major role in the treatment Magbie received.

 

Magbie was black, and according to Nall, "All Judge Retchin saw when she looked at Jonathan was another 'dope smoking nigger.' She did not see a helpless, vulnerable, completely dependent human being whose life was already hard enough. The drug war mentality has turned her into a monster. Her and many others."

 

Washington DC is known for racist tendencies in its justice system, especially towards drug offences. Half of the black men between the ages of 20 and 29 in Washington DC are under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system, mostly for minor drug crimes. (That is higher than the still shocking national average of one in three.)

 

"What happened to Jonathan Magbie is not acceptable in a civilized society," concluded Nall after her time in Washington DC. "I wish we could have put on a longer vigil, and drawn more media attention to this case. This should have been a major story across the nation, and instead this senseless and tragic death has largely been ignored."

[Ripper]

He got 10 days.

 

Its unfortunate he died, but its not like he got 10 years. He got found with cocaine, weed, and a gun and got 10 days when it was all said and done.

 

 

I don't get the outrage.

[Twisted Intestine]

It says there though (I don't know how accurate the article is), that he was never charged with the cocaine or gun. So it was 10 days for pot alone.

 

Edit: Also that the prison didn't have the proper equipment to take care of him. He never should have died.

[Ripper]

Charged or not, they got pulled over and he had a gun, cocaine and pot on him. While I know he officially got charged with the pot, come on. He had to be hard pressed to say that he was just a pot smoker, when he had coke on him.

 

Once again, its a shame the kid died and all, but if you get pulled over and there is a gun, cocaine and weed in the car and you get 10 days...you should be pretty happy about that.

[Guest]

He broke the law. Lawbreakers go to jail. Give me a fucking break.

 

Fuck, they don't even know why the guy died yet. It may not have ANYTHING to do with being in jail.

[Boon]

If marijuana was decriminalized, this man would've been able to walk.

[Twisted Intestine]

He broke the law. Lawbreakers go to jail. Give me a fucking break.

 

Fuck, they don't even know why the guy died yet. It may not have ANYTHING to do with being in jail.

 

The way I read it, the jail didn't have proper means to treat his condition, and as so he didn't get treated in time and died.

[BUTT]

I don't see why this is in the current events folder when it happened 3 years ago.

[Guest]

I mean, I feel bad for the guy cause he died and all, but they don't know what the exact cause of death was. The article just says he had a problem, and that the hospital was unequipped to care for him. Doesn't say what, though. I'd sure like to know.

 

The death is obviously incompetence on the part of the guards and hospital, but he deserved to be jailed for breaking the law.

 

Oh boy. I was treating this like it was new.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow.

[Nate]

He broke the law. Lawbreakers go to jail. Give me a fucking break.

 

Fuck, they don't even know why the guy died yet. It may not have ANYTHING to do with being in jail.

 

The way I read it, the jail didn't have proper means to treat his condition, and as so he didn't get treated in time and died.

 

yea it sounded like the facility didnt have the proper needs to accomedate his medical condition, thats the biggest stink being raised

 

[Jingus]

If marijuana was decriminalized, this man would've been able to walk.

Was the pun there intentional?

[Twisted Intestine]

Sorry, I didn't realize how old the story was.

 

What's a kid paralyzed from the neck down going to do with a gun?

[Jingus]

According to the story you posted, the guy driving the car when he was arrested hid the gun on him, thinking the cops wouldn't search the paralyzed guy. I'm interested to know exactly what crime they were pulled over for which necessitated pulling a quadriplegic out of the car and patting him down.

[A Happy Medium]

When I read this, the biggest thing I had a problem with was the care of the jailed. We live in a society that should, by now, be able to care of it's disabled while they are under state roof.

 

I just want to know why he was not able to go back to the facility which was able to treat him correctly.

 

Also, when the only support you get is from the marijuana party, you have problems.

[yankovic fan]

Ok he's 27 but met with Regan in 1982 while in a wheel chair according to the picture on the page captioned

 

" Magbie, who was paralyzed from the neck down at age 4 after his school bus was hit by a drunk driver. Since then Magbie had been under almost constant nursing care, and got around on a chin-operated wheelchair. (A year after his injury, a young Magbie had met President Ronald Reagan during a White House ceremony commemorating National Respiratory Therapy Week.)"

 

None of this story adds up. Plus the date on the page is October 2004.

 

Why the outrage now?

[EricMM]

Because it's fairly outrageous?

 

I can't remember if Ripper was pro-jailrape or not.

 

It's been a while.

 

But you don't condemn someone to a jail when they don't have equipment to keep a person alive.

[Ripper]

You don't set them free because they are disabled either.

 

What was his punish going to be? Confined to a hospital? WHOOOOOOOO.

 

 

And I am not pro ass-rape, I am realistic in saying that it can't be so easily remedied. I am also anti CO's getting shanked in the neck because they run in, unprotected trying to prevent an ass rape.

[EricMM]

Confined somewhere where they have the the necessary equipment for him to breathe...

[Twisted Intestine]

Just let the kid snort coke and smoke pot! He's not hurting anyone! What's he gunna do, get all high and run someone over with his chin operated wheel chair! If I had to live a shitty life like that I'd be sooo insulted if someone told me I couldn't do drugs.

 

Edit: I'm only being half-serious.

[Twisted Intestine]

But, yeah. The reasons I found this story interesting were;

 

1) The judge seems like a bitch for sentencing him to jail when both the prosecution and defendant sides agreed on probation. Besides that, how did nobody prepare the proper equipment for him, once in jail?

 

2) I found the guard who drove him to jail's story touching. It's easy for people to say, he broke the law, He deserves what he got!, but if you were that guard would you feel good about driving this disabled kid to the slammer?

 

Also, for those asking me why the outrage now, there is no outrage. I just found the story interesting for the above reasons, and didn't realize it was from 2004.

[yankovic fan]

Also, for those asking me why the outrage now, there is no outrage. I just found the story interesting for the above reasons, and didn't realize it was from 2004.

 

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.