As the hysteria is ebbing, sanity is gradually emerging. The massive failure of the "supply-side strategy" of the "War on Drugs" has become so obvious that even the zealots have slunk away in embarrassment. Over the last 30 years at least a half trillion dollars has been squandered on investigations, prosecutions, incarcerations, interdictions, anti-drug campaigns in foreign nations, defoliations, military aid (giveaways), renditions, even torture, with absolutely nothing of value achieved. To the contrary, the "War on Drugs" facilitated the construction of narcotic empires, which have funded world-wide terrorism, corrupted the governments and institutions of entire nations, destabilized democracy everywhere and filled Swiss Bank Accounts with hundreds of billions of dollars (so many that U.S. currency has been devalued by its stupendous availability.) So much U.S. currency has been dumped into the world's financial institutions that consideration is being given to replacing it as a standard of world-wide currency.

On a very personal level, the 50 million U.S. citizens who suffer chronic pain have been dumped into the street, as their decent and dedicated physicians were intimidated, persecuted, punished, imprisoned, and otherwise professionally and personally destroyed. A genocide was conducted - except it was not a matter of race, color, or religion, but of professional commitment to the relief of suffering. The belief, promoted by tabloid journalism, political opportunism, judicial-law enforcement-correctional empire building and just plain opiophobic stupidity - that drugs that relieve pain were evil - as were those who prescribed them, was the engine that drove the genocide. Now, almost 10 years after the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO)passed regulations requiring pain to be treated as the "fifth vital sign" - 75% of cancer patients die in unrelieved suffering, fewer that 5,000 doctors (out of 1 million) are willing to devote part of their practice to pain relief, and the most common cause of sanction and persecution of physicians by State Medical Boards is their daring to prescribe pain medicine.

Opiophobia will inevitably join the Inquisition, lynching, the resettlement of Japanese-Americans in WWII, anti-semitism, and a host of other forms of nightmare behavior as examples of the peculiarly human propensity for murderous madness.

The letter which follows reviews for us only a single example of the consequences of this madness. Dr. Graves has sat in a Florida prison for 7 of the 55 years to which he was sentenced. He would certainly have the knowing sympathy of Jesus, if he were around to compare their mutual suffering.

The National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain encourages every member to join the campaign seeking commutation for Dr. Graves. In his heart, and in the heart of his Family, and in the hearts of all who understand that the relief of suffering is the highest achievement of the human race, Dr. Graves knows who and what he is. It is way past time that our society, beginning with the Governor of Florida, acknowledge it. Free Dr. Graves. Confess our sins toward him. As Dr. Mandella knew - only with truth can there be reconciliation.      

J.S. Hochman MD
Executive Director
The National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain
---------------------------------------------
A Letter to the:

Office of Executive Clemency
2601 Blairstone Road, C-229
Tallahassee, Fl 32399-2450

June 18, 2009

Subject:  Clemency Application for Dr. James F. Graves, Junior (P19083)

Dear Sir/Madam:

James Frederick Graves, Junior (Dr. Graves) is currently serving as inmate number P19083 in the Florida state prison system.  Dr. Graves is my father and I am writing you today to request that he be granted commutation of sentence.  An application for clemency is provided as Attachment 1 and certified copies of the charging instrument including a copy of the judgment and sentence for each conviction are provided as Attachment 2.  Attachment 3 contains letters from family and friends that are requesting commutation of Dr. Graves’ sentence.  This letter presents a summary of Dr. Graves’ background, details about the criminal charges for which he was convicted, and justification as to why his sentence should be commuted.

Background Prior to Criminal Charges
Dr. Graves grew up in Monticello, Kentucky, the son of Fred and Ruth Graves, an electrician and a school teacher.  Upon graduating high school, he entered studies at the University of Kentucky where he earned a Bachelors degree in Chemistry followed by a Doctorate degree in Medicine.  Following graduation from medical school, Dr. Graves served an internship at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida and did a surgical residency in South Carolina at Spartanburg General Hospital.

Dr. Graves met Alecia Franklin at church and they began dating during summer school at Murray State University in 1968.  They were married at St. Clair Shores Baptist Church in St. Clair Shores, Michigan on June 7th, 1974.  Dr. and Mrs. Graves spent 5 months as medical missionaries in Ghana, Africa from July to December, 1976.

After returning from Africa, Dr. Graves joined the United States Navy where he became the youngest Senior Medical Officer to serve aboard an aircraft carrier.  He was the Battle Group Medical Officer for Commander Carrier Group I (Rear ADM Unasdf) during the first Gulf War.  The U.S.S. Independence was the first to enter Persian Gulf waters during Desert Shield, and the first to fight.  Dr. Graves proudly served his country as Commander and Senior Medical Officer aboard the U.S.S. Lexington, U.S.S. Concord, and U.S.S. Independence.  He is a recipient of the Navy Commendation Medal among other various military awards.  While serving in the military, Dr. Graves and Alecia had two children, Jimmy and Jordan.
Dr. Graves began struggling with his weight control and was eventually honorably discharged from the military for failing to meet weight standards.  After his military service, Dr. Graves spent several years serving as an on-call physician in various emergency rooms in the southeast.  In 1994, he went to India as a missionary to provide medical training for local doctors and medical personnel.   Dr. Graves also performed medical mission work in Haiti and Jordan.

In 1996 Dr. Graves took a job at the Pain & Accident Center (PAC) in Pensacola, Florida.  He had a very successful career with the PAC, and was named “Doctor of the Year” each of the two years he worked there.  A disagreement with the owner of the PAC clinics over fraudulent insurance claims later prompted Dr. Graves to resign from the practice and pursue opening his own medical and pain management practice in Pace, Florida where he was living at the time.

Dr. Graves practice did very well and at its peak he was caring for approximately 1,200 active patients in the Pace office and 500 patients in the Brewton, Alabama office he opened.  He had the support of seven full time employees, three part time employees, and was interviewing to hire a Nurse Practitioner prior to the abrupt closing of his office due to legal allegations.  Dr. Graves actively participated in the community of pain management professionals, attending training programs and medical meetings within the field.

Criminal Charges
Dr. Graves had several patients visit his office that were drug addicts faking symptoms in order to obtain narcotics for the purpose of getting high.  Dr. Graves became aware of this and started discharging patients.  He wrote a letter to the State Attorney General requesting assistance in investigating suspicious patients.  

It was later discovered that several patients were indeed abusing medications prescribed by Dr. Graves and using them in a manner that was against explicit instructions from Dr. Graves and the pharmacies that filled the prescriptions.  Some patients combined the drugs with other substances, like alcohol, while others would crush, dissolve and inject the medications intravenously.  Some actually died, like Jeffrey Daniels who took a handful of Xanax with excessive amounts of vodka and Howard Rice who injected medications intravenously.  

Dr. Graves was arrested and criminally charged for the deaths of 4 patients that overdosed, with the prosecution alleging that Dr. Graves caused the deaths of the patients through culpable negligence.  He was also charged with 5 counts of drug trafficking for providing legal prescriptions to Paul Mylock.  Paul is a convicted felon who had 20 years of his sentence commuted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) for wearing a wire tap to Dr. Graves’ office on multiple occasions where he would persistently fake pain symptoms in order to obtain prescriptions.

Dr. Graves’ legal matters quickly gained broad negative media attention typically based on information primarily supplied by the FDLE and the Assistant State Attorney General’s office; both have very close relationships with the various media outlets in the area.  Negative media coverage was heaviest locally, where Dr. Graves’ trial frequently dominated the front page of the Pensacola News Journal.  There was even an archive of articles about Dr. Graves case kept on the home page of the Pensacola News Journal internet site.  Despite the heavy local media coverage, Dr. Graves was tried in his home county of Santa Rosa.  He was convicted of all the charges that were brought against him.  At the instruction of the Assistant State Attorney General and the presiding judge (Kenneth Bell), a guilty verdict for a charge of racketeering was wrongfully included, although the criteria for a racketeering charge were not met.  For his judgment, Dr. Graves was sentenced to 63 years in prison at the age of 55.  Dr. Graves later received 17 years off of his sentence due to a sentencing error made by Judge Kenneth Bell, the judge presiding over the trial.

Although I believe that my father is an innocent man, and that he has been wrongfully imprisoned, and that his sentence (equivalent of a death sentence) is extremely harsh given the nature of the crimes for which he is accused, I have no intentions of arguing the details of his trial.  If you are interested in finding out more about my father’s case and about similar cases where medical doctors are being held liable for the wrongful behavior of their patients, I suggest you obtain a copy of The Criminalization of Medicine written by Ronald T. Libby, a political science professor at the University of North Florida.

Request for Commutation of Sentence
I am writing you today to request commutation for the remainder of Dr. Graves’ sentence.  My family and I are only seeking commutation of his sentence and not remission of any judgment. The following discussion provides justification for commutation of his sentence.

Dr. Graves is 62 years old and in poor health suffering from the following ailments:
-     Hypertension, requiring 5 medications to control
-     Severe kidney damage due to multiple kidney stones and 2 stents placed in the kidneys on several occasions to relive blockage.  He faces possible removal of his left kidney if the problems persist.
-     Herniated discs at his C5, C6 and C7 vertebrae producing weakness and numbness in the left arm with muscle atrophy.  He is currently undergoing evaluation and neurosurgery may be required.
-     Psoriasis  
Dr. Graves’ medical conditions create a high level of expense for the Florida state prison system and tax payers.  

Dr. Graves has a loving and supportive family who can help support his medical treatment and his adjustment to life outside of prison, if his sentence is commuted.   His wife, Alecia, is an elementary school teacher of 22 years with the Escambia County school system.  His son, Jimmy, is a chemical engineer working for an engineering consulting firm in Greenville, South Carolina.  His daughter, Jordan, is a registered nurse pursuing a career as a nurse anesthetist.  They all greatly want Dr. Graves to be released from prison so they may spend some time with him before his life reaches an end.  Since being imprisoned, Dr. Graves has missed his daughter’s high school and college graduations, his son’s college graduation and marriage, and his own father’s funeral.

Dr. Graves is a perfect candidate to be released from the prison system because he is a high cost prisoner and he presents no threat to society.  He was judged to be a threat to society as a medical professional with the ability to prescribe medications, but he is willing to relinquish any ability to prescribe medications in the future.  Prior to this case, Dr. Graves has no criminal history.  He does not drink, smoke tobacco, and has never recreationally used drugs. Dr. Graves is an educated, loving, Christian man.  Since being in prison he has maintained active participation in prison ministry activities and provided great assistance in inmate rehabilitation by helping prisoners obtain their GED.  If released, Dr. Graves has expressed an interest in committing his skills, knowledge and compassion to once again helping others.  If healthy enough, he would enjoy the opportunity to once again get involved with missionary work.  Given his academic, career and world experiences, Dr. Graves has a great capacity to be a positive contributor to the welfare of society outside of the prison system.
I request that commutation for the remainder of Dr. Graves’ sentence be granted so that he can be with his family during the remaining years of his life.  He will relinquish his ability to prescribe medications, commit his time to social service, and will not seek legal action in retaliation for his imprisonment.  Thank you for consideration of this request and please feel free to contact me if you need additional information.  
Sincerely,

Jimmy Graves (son of Dr. Graves)
Contact information:
277 Chinquapin Road
Easley, SC 29640
Telephone: 864-855-6182
Cellular: 864-420-3850
Email: laurelandjimmy@yahoo.com
-----------------------------
Dear  Dr. Hochman and Mr. Barletta,

Thank you so much for your support of my father's release and for posting the information on the web site.  I am so grateful!

If anyone asks, please have letters supporting my father's clemency request sent to my home address so I can include them with the clemency application.

277 Chinquapin Rd
Easley, SC 29640

I cannot thank you enough for helping to spread the word about my father's clemency request...  and thank you for everything you all are doing to support the fair treatment of pain in this country!

Warmest Regards,

Jimmy Graves