By Charlton Stanley, Weekend Contributor
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:
—ooOoo–
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The Tea Party is not a Party at all. It is a large faction of the Republican Party. Therefore, we must start realizing that the Republican Party is split. But the Tea Party part is un Republican. Not the Party of Lincoln. Not the Party of Reconstruction. Not the Party of Ike. As one guy above says, it is an off shoot of the Lee Atwater segment which runs the Party. But the Tea Party was not happy with the likes of Romney. Maybe John McCain can run again. We need a war monger right at the head of the Republican Tribe. McCain seems to speak for the tribe now. We need at least three more wars right now. Or so he says.
My sympathies go to Mark Mayfield’s family. I don’t know what he was thinking about involving himself in such a plot. I see the Teaparty as being the end-point of the Atwater trajectory of protecting white male privilege at all costs. Its a pretty ugly place to be and tends to lead to such law breaking. I do have to wonder what’s in the suicide note and if the fears of the Mississippi tea party is justified.
Happypappies, and others of the Tea Party persuasion. We are on to you. Here is a Wikipedia account of Lee, and I am not talking about Bobby Lee:
Atwater on the Southern Strategy[edit]
As a member of the Reagan administration in 1981, Atwater gave an anonymous interview to political scientist Alexander P. Lamis. Part of the interview was printed in Lamis’s book The Two-Party South, then reprinted in Southern Politics in the 1990s with Atwater’s name revealed. Bob Herbert reported on the interview in the October 6, 2005, edition of the New York Times. On November 13, 2012, The Nation magazine released what it claimed to be audio of the full interview.[7] James Carter IV, grandson of former president Jimmy Carter, had asked and been granted access to these tapes by Lamis’s widow. Atwater talked about the Republican Southern Strategy and Ronald Reagan’s version of it:
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964 and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”[8][9]
Atwater also argued that the Reagan did not need to make racial appeals, suggesting that Reagan’s issues transcended the racial prism of the “Southern Strategy”:
Atwater: But Reagan did not have to do a southern strategy for two reasons. Number one, race was not a dominant issue. And number two, the mainstream issues in this campaign had been, quote, southern issues since way back in the sixties. So Reagan goes out and campaigns on the issues of economics and of national defense. The whole campaign was devoid of any kind of racism, any kind of reference. And I’ll tell you another thing you all need to think about, that even surprised me, is the lack of interest, really, the lack of knowledge right now in the South among white voters about the Voting Rights Act.”[10]
—end– of wiki
As George Wallace might say: Republican Party now! Republican Party tomorrow! Republican Party Forever!
samantha wrote “The victims of 911 jumped from the twin towers because what was out front was better than what was behind.”
Yes, that was monumentally sad that people were forced to make that decision. In today’s NSA world, we forget just how angry Americans were after 9/11. Having a touch of vertigo, I probably would have found a box cutter (yes, ironic) and slit my wrists.
I was one of the last Americans to know that people had voluntarily jumped from the towers because I was out of the country on 9/11.
Today we have many people killing themselves because they see no hope for the future.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/06/12/study-links-great-recession-to-10000-suicides/
Grandpappies: What does race have to do with calling Pee Party members Tories? There is nothing to do with race in my comment. Except that some members of one race have gone back to the Party of Lincoln. For those of you who are unaware of the history of the Republican Party, please Google Search: Lee Atwater and The Southern Strategy. If you are a white southern Republican, when did you become one? Was your grand daddy Republican back when the Party favored voting rights for blacks?
Tea Party adherents are Tories and would not have backed the American Revolution. Own up to it.
One reason I intensely dislike the Tea Party is that its members have the morals of Bolsheviks, i.e. they have none. They believe they have a monopoly on the truth. That’s why they clash with liberals on a regular basis, because liberals hold the same view.
The intrusion into the nursing home of Senator Cochran’s wife is unforgivable. It’s much worse than Connie Chung interviewing the mother of Newt Gingrich and convincing her to label Hillary a bitch after essentially promising her that their conversation was just between them. This is Watergate-level stuff.
I hope all of these clowns end up in prison, especially Clayton Kelley. Tea Party bloggers often post information that is technically legal, but practically effing rude. Another example is Tom Alciere who has listed the entire voting registration lists — including addresses and ages — of at least eight states (Connecticut is at connvoters DOT com), Texas marriage records (www DOT marriagesintexas DOT com), and the Social Security death master file (www DOT sortedbyname DOT com), not to mention publicly calling for the murder of police officers.
While it’s sad when someone is suicided (not a misspelling), I must take exception to your statement: “It should come as no surprise to anyone that conspiracy theorists are breaking out the tinfoil hats.”
Your statement alludes to a belief that anyone who thinks outside the proverbial socially engineered “BOX” is a nutcase. Yet time and again they are usually proven correct.
http://www.businessinsider.com/true-government-conspiracies-2013-12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiAu8GTxZE4
2 Thessalonians 2:11: And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
The term “Conspiracy Theory” was created in the 1950’s under their multi-faceted “MKUltra” programs to socially engineer human behavior.
Critical thinking skills are mandatory to become a conspiracy theorist, that’s probably why so few people grasp the concept and make light of such matters.
So thank you Professor for perpetuating the belief that “Conspiracy Theory (Theorist) are mentally deficient, but I must respectfully disagree.
“All the men face felony conspiracy charges.” – Chuck
“Over one-quarter of all federal criminal prosecutions and a large number of state cases involve prosecutions for conspiracy.” -Yale Law Journal
happypappies, Don’t waste your time. This was put out as red meat. Let the haters hate and don’t let them get under your skin. These Dem cultists are having a VERY tough time now, w/ their cult leader imploding. Depression and anger are ugly cousins. You can see it in this post.
“UP with Steve Kornacki” (MSNBC) covered the issue this morning.
There is a lot of heat in the T-Party v Republican Establishment ideological struggle at the moment.
Sounds like an episode of House of Cards.
What an incredibly strange story all around. I’m sorry that a life was ended in relation to this comedy of errors.
I have not spoken with Buddy Coxwell about this case, and don’t recall ever meeting Mark Mayfield, although I may have. From what I can learn about the case. Mayfield was not one of the people who broke into the nursing home. However, the allegations against him was that he was a co-conspirator. His role was providing Kelley and the others detailed information regarding the exact location of Mrs. Cochran’s room in the facility. He may have also given them information about security and how to circumvent it.
Mayfield was so familiar with the nursing home because his mother was a patient there until her death. One would think that, of all people, he would have had empathy for the family and Mrs. Cochran. I can only guess what his reaction might have been had it been his mother who was the target.
Suicide is sad and yet everything that was happening to him he brought on himself. Do I feel sad or should I belittle a guy who couldn’t man up to the consequences of his actions – which he surely knew would be illegal and not that hard to figure out who committed the crime?
These Tea Party folks are always nuts and always petty. It is frustrating I’m sure to see one’s ideology die a slow death on the vine as society moves forward.
Very sad. I hope he was good with God.
Thursday night at the Tea Party rally in rocky top Tennessee, Alan West decried the Mississippi primary and said, “If they call me racist, I’ll laugh my ass off!”
Thank you Chuck.
Condolences to Mr. Mayfield’s family.
Al Zheimers what a mean spirited reply, right back at you racist. Please don’t post here again. I still remember those people on MSNBC making fun of Romney’s black grand child. Shame on you. Very Sad. The human condition is a tough thing. Condolences for the family
The death is a shame. The Tea Party has members who would almost all be Tories in 1776. The Republican Party was the Party of Lincoln. Then with the Southern Strategy of Lee Atwater and pursued by Nixon, Reagun, and every RepubliCon which followed, the Republican Party became the sole sponsor of the Bigoted South. Ironically, the winner of this election called upon black voters to rejoin the Party of Lincoln. The Pee Party is out. The Pee Party is cold. The Pee Party has been in the pot nine days old. Nuff said.
One thing I know about suicide: You do not have to be mentally ill. The victims of 911 jumped from the twin towers because what was out front was better than what was behind.
I saw this earlier on Daily Kos..and noted that any death is a tragedy….thoughts and prayers are with his family….whatever disagreements one may have with him, it is still tragic and trust that all agree…thanks for your comments and wishing all a great w-end….