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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Sarah Palin…chuckle.
Annie,
Eliot Spitzer… Gufaw.
is this repartee?
Mugwump: That’s the ticket!
“Politico (“Defiant Chris McDaniel declines to concede in speech to supporters”) reinforced my earlier point about TPers acting like Bolsheviks. When a politician loses, he concedes; that’s just being professional. TPers act like children too young for school.”
Professional politician AlGore conceded in Florida 2000. But then he took it back! Praps Like Lizzie Warren he has genetic immunity.
You Beltway xenophobes ought to know that East Tennessee has been solid Republican since Lincoln was on the ballot here. These people were the Underground Railroad mainline through the Smoky Mountains, were viciously deprived and persecuted by Nashville ever since that evil war, and stood up for Constitutionalism from the get-go, through it all and onto the future.
How could you think the Tea Partiers are Tories? They are Constutionalists. Correct, they are NOT a party. They are a movement. Palin said Thursday that we don’t want to be a party with all the bylaws, resolutions, committees and sell-outs that come with party action.
The only reason you say Tea Partiers are Republican, is because you don’t know any 1.) Independent Tea Partiers, or 2.) Democrats who respect the Constitution like Jay Sekulow does.
Tea Party is anti-establishment. Seems ALL of its opponents are antidisestablishmentarians, i’n it?
I have had lawyers try to play word games like that with me for four decades. What ends up happening is I hand them their asses.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about and are just making noise. I am done here.
Stanley wrote: “Those were choices and do not fall under the sam rubric.”
Your pronown above refers to those who jumped from the Twin Towers.
Inasmuch as Mark Mayfield “chose” to commit suicide, his act does not fall under Shneidman’s rubric, using your “positive equivalence.” It’s not a question of whether Mayfield did or did not commit suicide but, rather, whether he did it by “choice.” If he did it by choice, again, according to you, it’s not a valid, real suicide. Perhaps you can make this distinction now, after I’ve taken the time to guide you.
TheSaucyMugwump (@TheSaucyMugwump)
Did Washington own slaves? What’s that tell you?
You posted that Washington dismissed passion for parties over the Constitution. You might review your post.
Washington was so convinced of “the duty of every individual to obey the established government” that he almost singlehandedly conducted a bloody, violent revolution against the entire British empire, the constituted colonial government, placing his freedom and life in mortal jeopardy.
Finally, I can’t imagine I questioned the constitutional amendment process. Here’s what you’re missing:
“…an authentic and explicit act of the whole people…”
We can debate the infinite number of unconstitutional (i.e. inauthentic) acts and the precise definitions of “explicit” and “whole” when we have more time. How about getting into old “Crazy Abe” whose own words acknowledged that he did not have the power to emancipate anyone, etc., etc.?
I understand that you have a comprehensive constitutional education.
I don’t perceive that you grasp the definition and literal meaning of words as corollaries to situations and circumstances extant and accepted contemporarily which authors use to communicate ideas. It may be that you misconstrue definition with “license.”
Madison said of personal or “moveable property” that the right to it existed before a government was established and that it was endowed at birth and was unalienable because was given by the Creator. Madison made that statement to set the stage and create an understanding for his position that government established “real property.”
George Washington believed in loyalty and violent opposition. He believed in abolition as a slave owner. He understood that Americans wanted freedom through self-reliance. He agreed to promote the general welfare as he deliberately excluded funding direct payment of individual welfare.
P.S. I wonder what Washington would think about an executive branch that arrogantly violates the 4th Amendment, nationalized the healthcare industry and absolutely refused to enforce enacted law regarding the sanctity of the border and the deportation of criminal illegal aliens.
P.P.S. Resorting to ad hominem raises the victory flag for your opponent.
Power is and has always been radioactive — especially political power. As PJ O’ Rourke reminds us just because you create a political machine doesn’t mean you’ll be around to run it.
Samantha,
Are we having a reading comprehension problem here? I said nothing even remotely like that.
Mark Mayfield committed suicide. Is that clear enough for you?
Stanley wrote: “Those were choices and do not fall under the sam rubric.”
You do realize you are saying Mark Mayfield did not make a decision to commit suicide? Or Ernest Hemingway, Adolf Hitler, Kurt Cobain, Vince Foster.
The parachute had been developed by WW2. It was WWI that pilots did not wear parachutes. Balloon observers had the first primitive parachutes. German aviators were issued parachutes before the allied airmen got them, but that was relatively late in the war. The choice was to burn to death in a gasoline fire, or jump. A Hobson’s choice. Most chose jumping to burning, if they could get out.
That is not even close to the psychological definition of suicide. Guess the question is, which choice would anyone reading this make? The gas tank is in front of you, dumping out gasoline from bullet holes, and the gas is on fire. YOU are on fire. Watch this old film and estimate how long you would be willing to endure that fire in your lap and face. If you were still alive by the time the airplane made it to the ground, the crash would be fatal. Either way is certain death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US5o6rixsM8
Quite different from putting a bullet through your own brain because you are facing prison and ruin.
More on male suicide from an essay by Todd McMullen, circa 1980:
“Jails are for males. They sure are, along with every other grim, negative quality of life under The American Way. Locally, Christmas last, there were 962 guys in the San Diego jail while 108 gals languished at the women’s facility at Los Colinas, a converted girls school complete with two tennis courts and a swimming pool used as such until just recently. By comparison, the men’s facility is a barren hellhole notwithstanding there were 10 times more guys than gals locked up in the first place, a ‘normal’ event. Nationwide, 96% of 301,017 people in Federal and State prisons were males in 1980. More normalcy. As everyone knows, male babies are born more criminal than female babies. It’s genetic, like Skid Row, and the local newspaper was good enough to have its yearly photo of a ‘normal’ derelict with his head between his knees sitting on a parking curb Christmas day. Chances are he ate at a Rescue Mission after being coerced to sing songs of praise to a religious influence that worships his sex nailed to a cross. Insidious, sexually speaking, isn’t it?
“Jail conditions or whatever, the really sad part about all this is that no one, least of all the Big Strong American Male is going to torch his jockey shorts on City Hall steps before media cameras crying about denial of equal protection of the laws or cruel and unusual, let alone sex discrimination. Heaven forbid the sons of Superman when it comes to complaining about second-class citizenship on sexual terms. It just wouldn’t be, well, it just wouldn’t, for some reason.”
Mississippi is well known by this writer to have some oddball – or corrupt lawyers (e.g. Dicky Scruggs and imo WS Moore) + corrupt LEO (e.g. MBN),
and Madison County- arguably, the most racist county in the U.S. – is also a bed of corrupt judges, LEO).
John wrote “Washington said that Americans should live the literal words of the Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights”
Not in his farewell address. Try reading it. He did say, “But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all,” which explicitly states that the people have the right to change the Constitution. And we have.
Here are some snippets:
“The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government …”
“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.”
“The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.”
John wrote “What, do you imagine, would Washington say about that?”
Do you just wake up every so often, run to your PC, and type the first stuff that comes to your mind?
Being free of the crowd has absolutely nothing to do with being antisocial. Where did you get that idea from, Bolton or Leatherneck? Or is it just from your crowd?
I think being anti social might be a bigger problem, Samantha.
Stanley, why did those world war 2 pilots take their own lives by jumping?
Chuck Stanley
Dredd, I think that is a rectal thermometer. She needs to get her head out of the way before she can use it.
==============================
LOL.
The head is the most dangerous weapon.
Especially when it is misplaced in the manner you indicated.
I never said all psychologists. If you re-read my comment, you will see that I qualified it with “bent on obfuscation.” You probably just missed that part, and even believe you can do better yourself. Any child can detect when we talk from both sides of our mouth, but some of us, as adults, can’t. Over-socialization, becoming one with the crowd, ruins everything.
Chuck Stanley
…
The other is about intentionally taking one’s own life, usually with planning aforethought.
…
False equivalence is a logical fallacy.
===========================
In the law, intent follows the bullet:
(W. Ritz). When a society commits suicide that was not the intent, it is a dynamic of transferred intent.
But it is still self murder or suicide.
Dredd, I think that is a rectal thermometer. She needs to get her head out of the way before she can use it.
Samantha.
You are confusing wearing a parachute with taking a gun to one’s own head. One is about survival and avoiding death if at all possible. Taking precautions to avoid getting killed is not avoiding suicide.
The other is about intentionally taking one’s own life, usually with planning aforethought.
You know….as in deliberately killing oneself. From the Latin:
sui = of oneself
cadere = kill
False equivalence is a logical fallacy.