Bizarre, Congress, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Justice, Uncategorized

Mississippi Tea Party attorney commits suicide.

By Charlton Stanley, Weekend Contributor

Mark Mayfield Jackson Attorney Photo by Jackson, MS police department
Mark Mayfield
Jackson Attorney
Photo by Jackson, MS police department

As I write this, the news is still coming in, and the full story is far from being told. I will provide breaking news as I hear it, but our intrepid bloggers should consider the comments an Open Thread. If you have solid news to report, please do so, and source the information. Otherwise it is just gossip.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that conspiracy theorists are breaking out the tinfoil hats.

What do we know about the death of Mississippi attorney Mark Mayfield? He lived in Ridgeland, Mississippi, a bedroom suburb just north of the city of Jackson. He was 57 years old. About 9:00 Friday morning, he was found dead in his home of a single gunshot wound. There was a note, but authorities have not revealed the contents. That is not unusual. When I worked in the state that was general policy with investigators across the state. Sometimes suicide notes are poignant, sad, and express intense pain. Other notes have content so gross or inflammatory they could not be printed in a family newspaper. In cases of suicide notes, the families often are reluctant to permit release to the public. In other cases, the note may implicate other people in a crime, or include confidential information. If the latter is the case, release of the content of a suicide note risks compromising an ongoing investigation, especially if sealed indictments are involved. Nothing should be read into it if the note contents are not released and made public.

Mayfield was a major supporter of the Tea Party in Mississippi. They fielded a candidate to run against Senator Thad Cochran in the Republican primary, Chris McDaniel. During the run-up to the primary, several men gained illegal entry into the nursing home where Senator Cochran’s wife was staying. She has Alzheimer’s disease. The actual break-in was actually implemented by a Tea Party blogger named Clayton Kelley, who was arrested. A photo of Mrs. Cochran was posted on a website, presumably Kelley’s. It was taken down a short time later.

Kelley was arrested along with four men, including lawyer Mayfield. The others arrested in the incident were Richard Sager, a high school coach and John Beachman Mary of Hattiesburg. Mary was not taken into custody because of what were described as “extensive medical conditions.”
All the men face felony conspiracy charges. I have not found a complete list of all the charges, but I am sure some would have been added later. For one there is a major HIPAA violation.

My take on this as a professional who has worked in the field for more than forty years, is that Mayfield felt he had no options left. His career as a lawyer was over. He knew he would lose his license to practice and almost certainly was going to be sent to prison. Life as he knew it in the past was ended; that is, after he was released from prison.

There are many professions where one can recover and rebuild after a conviction. Martha Stewart is an example of reinventing oneself. On the other hand, actor Fatty Arbuckle never was able to reestablish a career. Having made a study of suicide over the years, and taught a doctoral level course on Thanatology, there is one overriding element almost all suicides have in common. The subject believes there is literally no way out of the bleak situation they are in. That leads to a feeling of hopelessness. This in turn causes a kind of tunnel vision in which they can envision only one way out.

Setting political issues aside for a moment, I believe this is a time for empathy for Mark Mayfield’s family and loved ones. His criminal defense attorney, Merrida “Buddy” Coxwell is a long time acquaintance of mine, and I believe he expressed it as well as I can, “…he was a client, but more importantly, he was a friend for almost 34 years. My heart is completely broken. This is beyond tragic and the people of this community and state have lost a good man…”

The recriminations can start later. I will say; however, that my contacts in Mississippi tell me the Tea Party regulars have tight sphincter syndrome regarding what Mayfield may have put in that note.

Sources:

WAPT

WLBT

Jackson Clarion-Ledger

—ooOoo–

The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art is solely the author’s decision and responsibility.

253 thoughts on “Mississippi Tea Party attorney commits suicide.”

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  2. by Mississippi PEP | August 29, 2014 · 2:10 pm
    Court rules in favor of Cochran’s motion to dismiss against Chris McDaniel.

    2 Votes

    Judge says McDaniel waited too late to file challenge with the MS GOP.

    Special Judge Hollis McGehee announced this afternoon an election challenge filed by Chris McDaniel will not move forward and go to trial.

    U.S. Senator Thad Cochran’s attorneys claim Chris McDaniel’s team waited too long to file their challenge of the June 24th Republican primary runoff results.

    McDaniel’s team filed that challenge August 4th. Cochran’s attorneys pointed to a 1959 Mississippi Supreme Court ruling that states a challenge to a district or statewide election must be initiated within 20 days of the election.

    Stay tuned.

    http://mississippipep.wordpress.com/

  4. Stanley,

    I’m back from the Doc today & I don’t feel well, we’ll see what tomorrow brings .

  6. ** Strangled horse dies Wednesday morning near Martinsburg …

    1 day ago … A horse that was found strangled by a rope Monday afternoon off … W.Va. police searching for two teens suspected of strangling a horse near … **

    http://www.heraldmailmedia.com/ news/ tri_state/ west_virginia/ strangled-horse-dies-wednesday-morning-near-martinsburg/ article_f22ff346-1283-11e4-8248-0017a43b2370.html

    Stanley,

    I want everyone to have due process, but I don’t think I could be fair to those teens in the above story.

    With some of these cases I don’t see how people involved with the courts can cope with some of these insane people.

    This case below is a million times more important as it’s a main piece of the architecture that in turn cause most of the lunacy.

    As I’ve been pointing out most people haven’t a clue as to what/who is beating their & family’s brains out.

    ** Lawsuit Stunner: Half of Futures Trades in Chicago Are Illegal Wash Trades
    By Pam Martens: July 24, 2014

    Since March 30 of this year when bestselling author, Michael Lewis, appeared on 60 Minutes to explain the findings of his latest book, Flash Boys, as “stock market’s rigged,” America has been learning some very uncomfortable truths about the tilted playing field against the public stock investor.

    Throughout this time, no one has been more adamant than Terrence (Terry) Duffy, the Executive Chairman and President of the CME Group, which operates the largest futures exchange in the world in Chicago, that the charges made by Lewis about the stock market have nothing to do with his market. The futures markets are pristine, according to testimony Duffy gave before the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee on May 13.

    On Tuesday of this week, Duffy’s credibility and the honesty of the futures exchanges he runs came into serious question when lawyers for three traders filed a Second Amended Complaint in Federal Court against Duffy, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade and other individuals involved in leadership roles at the CME Group.

    The conduct alleged in the lawsuit, backed by very specific examples, reads more like an organized crime rap sheet than the conduct of what is thought by the public to be a highly regulated futures exchange in the U.S.

    The lawyers for the traders begin, correctly, by informing the court of the “vital public function” that is supposed to be played by these exchanges in “providing price discovery and risk transfer.” They then methodically show how that public purpose has been disfigured beyond recognition through secret deals and “clandestine” side agreements made with the knowledge of Duffy and his management team.

    The most stunning allegation in the lawsuit is that an estimated 50 percent of all trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is derived from illegal wash trades. **

    http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/07/lawsuit-stunner-half-of-futures-trades-in-chicago-are-illegal-wash-trades/

  12. The Einstein Dilemma:

    Here is Ole uncle Albert, he’s stuck on the 3rd rock from the sun & he can’t go anywhere & he knows it’s.

    The planet he’s landed on is inhabited by mostly zombies that are either brain dead poisoned by industrialization or they’ve checked out of the world by choice.

    A planet where the insane sociopath lunatics run the asylum.

    I’m no Einstein, but I believe I can understand a piece of his frustration.

    I don’t know, maybe if Uncle Albert would have written a hit song or two along with his other works, then maybe…

    What did you do with your life/time while you lived it out on the 3rd rock from the sun?

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