I’m told that Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell’s wife is a justice on the Third Circuit court that denied Dr. Bill Rottschaefer’s appeal, and in fact is the Rendell who wrote the opinion.

Which means a pardon from the governor is probably unlikely. Which means the 63-year-old man will in all likelihood die in the maximum security prison where he’s about to begin serving time.

The man was convicted on the testimony of five drug addicts, one of whom admitted over and over again in letters to her boyfriend that she was lying in exchange for leniency for the charges against her. Charges of dealing OxyContin, naturally.

I hope voters and journalists in Philadelphia will remember this case when U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan inevitably runs for political office there.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 9:57 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Pain Treatment, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.