Felony Friday: Man Jailed for Traffic Ticket Dies in Cell after 17 Days of Cruel and Unusual Punishment
For more than two years I’ve been writing this Felony Friday feature. To be completely honest, sometimes I get bogged down by all the demands of everyday life and forget why I sit down every week to write this column.This is exactly how I was feeling as I began my research process to find a worthy topic for this week's feature. You see, my wife and I just had our first baby this past weekend and my mind was mush. Pounding away at my keyboard was sounding much less appealing than laying my head on a pillow and grabbing a few hours (minutes) of sleep.I don’t know about you, but life seems to have a way of giving me a kick in the pants at the right time to keep me motivated and focused. And this time life gave me a kick and a slap in the face when I stumbled across a Reason article that detailed the tragic death of thirty-two-year-old David Stojcevski.This awful report reminded me why I continue to write Felony Friday week in and week out. It is my passion to give my pro-individual rights perspective on stories about individuals who have had their rights violated by the sometimes barbaric criminal justice system or violent police forces that are charged with maintaining law and order in our "civilized" society. Ironically, far too often the very laws and institutions that are intended to keep us safe end up inflicting the most painful harm.I continue to write because the people need to know about the David Stojcevskis of the world. The system will not change until people are able to relate human faces to these abhorrent acts.Stojcevski had his share of self-inflicted problems. He was a drug addict and was taking Methadone, Xanax, and Klonopin to treat his addiction when he was arrested for failing to pay a $772 fine. The fine was not related to drugs, but was the result of a careless driving ticket. Stojcevski did not have the money to pay the ticket so the court ordered him to spend a month in the Macomb County jail.The treatment Mr. Stojcevski was subjected to while in jail on a thirty-day sentence was inhumane and would be deemed unacceptable by any reasonable person. Instead of being provided treatment for drug withdrawal the Macomb County jail misdiagnosed him with a mental disorder and stripped him naked "for his own protection."The treatment itself was bad enough, but it gets worse. Mr. Stojcevski was monitored by video surveillance throughout the entire ordeal, including during his last minutes as he convulsed naked on the cell floor.Reason reports:
Over the next 17 days of his incarceration in a brightly lit cell—where he was denied clothing—he lost 50 pounds, suffered convulsions, and eventually began to hallucinate. He died in agony, from a combination of obvious, untreated drug withdrawal and galling neglect.Making matters worse (if anything could be worse than that), the entirety of his demise was captured on jail surveillance footage. Indeed, Stojcevski was under self-harm watch—stemming for a profound misdiagnosis of his condition, which was drug addiction, not mental instability—and jail officials were supposed to be watching him constantly. Either their vigilance was inadequate, or they watched and simply didn’t care…… At one point, Stojcevski began fighting with another (naked) inmate, who was then moved out of the cell. Sometime later, completely alone, Stojcevski could be seen reenacting the fight—a clear sign of hallucination.On his last day of life, the man refused to touch his food and was too weak to get up from the floor.At the first, obvious sign of drug withdrawal, Stojcevski should have been given adequate medical treatment. He was not a violent criminal, or a danger to the public. He was a man who hadn’t paid a traffic ticket.
More in depth coverage by WDIV in Detroit can be seen below. The report is disturbing and difficult to watch, but I definitely recommend viewing to gain a full understand of the heartless actions taken against a broken man who needed help, not punishment.It is stories like David Stojcevski’s that serve to remind us how cruel and barbaric the human race remains. Politicians and pundits like to talk about progress, but as long as we live in a society where behavior like this is met with a shrug we will never step out of chaos and into civility.Check out the full archive of Felony Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Check out our YouTube Channel!Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!Join our Facebook Group: The Lions of Liberty Forum
