AT LONG LAST, FREE MAN CAN LOOK UP

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.

"I looked out the window and saw - things," Paey said softly. "The
sun seemed brighter. The air seemed fresher. I had to look up." And
life, at long last, seemed more just.

Only hours earlier, the 48-year-old Paey was more commonly known as
Florida Department of Corrections offender R29228, a convicted drug
trafficker not scheduled to be free until Jan. 22, 2028.

About four years ago, in an egregious exercise of prosecutorial abuse
that makes a Star Chamber seem like an Edwardian era exercise in
gentility, Paey was convicted in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court of
seven counts of possession and trafficking in a controlled substance
by fraud - namely oxycodone and hydrocodone - leading to a 25-year
prison sentence.

But this defendant was hardly the Al Capone of the Americans With
Disabilities Act.

Paey, then in leg braces and using crutches to get around, was a man
in extreme, excruciating, unrelenting pain, the result of severe back
injuries sustained in a car accident, a botched surgery and the onset
of multiple sclerosis. Job was more happy-go-lucky.

Not a shred of evidence was produced proving Paey ever sold and/or
shared his pain medications with others, which the defendant always
maintained were legally obtained from his physician with a prescription.

Indeed, the eagle-eyed detectives and prosecutors never provided
evidence that Paey forged prescriptions.

Still, despite a weaker case than the trial of Socrates, it was off
to the hoosegow for Paey, who was now using a wheelchair and fitted
with a morphine pump, which administered, at state expense, more
drugs than the inmate had been convicted of illegally possessing.

Pain and Insanity

During his years in prison, Richard Paey become an international
cause celebre not only for a better understanding of pain management
in America, but also against certifiably insane sentencing
guidelines, which would condemn a very sick, infirm man to a de facto
life sentence.

While even the 2nd District Court of Appeal sympathized with Paey's
clearly dubious sentence, it eventually fell to the state clemency
board, made up of Gov. Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Alex
Sink, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Agricultural Commissioner
Charles Bronson, to trump the cruel intractability of the criminal
justice system with some simple common decency.

John P. Flannery II, Paey's lawyer, in a powerfully written petition
before the clemency board, summed up his client's predicament,
noting, "Finally, in a civilized society, we do not punish
individuals who are sick simply because they are sick and because
they require medical treatment - whether it is prescription drugs or
anything else."

As well, Flannery said the mission before the board was to argue,
"This was a case where the law got it wrong." He added, "We wanted to
tell the board: You can trust this guy not to embarrass you."

Apparently, Flannery more than made his point.

A Good Day

Crist moved, not only to grant clemency, but a full pardon, which was
unanimously approved. "They call it justice," the governor said.
"That's what we're doing here today. We aim to right a wrong and
exercise compassion, and to do it with grace."

Richard Paey began the day a felon. By sunset he was an innocent man.

Back at the prison, a bit of chaos ensued.

Pardons of incarcerated prisoners are so rare, no one knew exactly
how to process Paey's release.

And in one final cruel joke, before he was informed he would be
freed, Paey was rolled in his wheelchair to sit in front of an intake
office, which processes prisoners into the system. How amusing.

"I was having a mild coronary," Paey said.

In the van, on the way home to his family, the corrections officers
transporting Paey, never having seen a pardon before, passed the
paperwork back and forth between them in amazement.

Finally, the long trip ended in Hudson with a reunion with his
college-sweetheart wife and daughters and mother - and a pepperoni pizza.

Resumption Of Freedom

By Friday morning, after his first night back in his own bed, Paey
was busy on the phone trying to get his pardon papers returned from
Tomoka. Amid all the excitement, harried prison officials had
forgotten to make copies of all the paperwork - including the pardon decree.

And now what?

"I'd like to disappear into anonymity," Paey said. "But I feel a
responsibility to all the people who helped me keep this issue alive.

"They gave me a human side in the eyes of the public," Paey said,
adding he would like to get involved in increasing awareness of pain
management.

It's an acute issue, especially with more injured veterans returning
from Iraq with significant pain-management problems.

"I get letters from veterans all the time," Paey said. "I'm gonna
help as much as I can."

Paey was very kind in thanking this space for helping to tell his story.

But ultimately, Richard Paey is a free man today because truth
eventually triumphed over prosecutorial bullies and because Charlie
Crist and the Cabinet saw a miscarriage of justice and demanded compassion.

It was a good day for Richard Paey. It was a great day to look up -
into the Florida sun.