20151227 Fälschte Gefängnisanwältin Gesundheitsgutachten?

27.12.2015 Fälschte Gefängnisanwältin Gesundheitsgutachten?

False DOC evidence bombshell on final day of Abu-Jamal hearing

The third and final day of the 3rd Circuit Federal District Court hearing on Mumia Abu-Jamal’s lawsuit against the PA Dept. of Corrections ended with the jaw-dropping revelation that the lawyer representing the DOC (the defendant in this case) had knowingly introduced false evidence.

The major shocker was a statement by the DOC’s final witness, Dr. Paul Noel (Chief Medical Officer of the PA DOC) that an affidavit introduced by the defense attorney Laura Neal bearing Noel’s signature was NOT his actual testimony. It quickly became evident that the DOC attorney had ignored Dr. Noel’s repeated requests not to insert an erroneous paragraph into the document.

As Mumia’s lead attorney Robert Boyle was cross examining him, Dr. Noel stated under oath that the affidavit filed by the defense in this case with his signature was not his testimony. While the signature on the document was indeed his, this was not the document he had signed. In September this same altered affidavit was a key piece of “evidence” used by a PA Magistrate judge to deny Mumia’s injunction against the DOC.

It became clear that attorney Neal had knowingly tampered with the evidence by including a paragraph in Noel’s affidavit erroneously stating that hepatitis C viral load levels should determine treatment options for Mumia. Noel testified that he told Neal in September, in December and again just that morning outside the courtroom that the
inserted paragraph was incorrect.

As attorney Neal stumbled with excuses that the information was factually correct, Dr. Noel replied “but misleading and false in its conclusions.” At this point, the trial Judge Robert Mariani cautioned Neal that she was at risk of “impeaching her own witness.”

As Boyle continued with his cross examination Dr. Noel acknowledged that another paragraph in the affidavit stating that Dr. Ramon Gadea, the only infectious disease specialist to examine Mumia, “ruled out Hepatitis C as a cause for Mumia’s extreme skin eruptions” was also false. In fact, in his discharge papers for Mumia following a Sept. 9 consult, Dr. Gadea stated that he believed Hepatitis C could be a
secondary cause of the skin rash and that Hep C should be treated after ruling out a rheumatoid condition (which has been done).

Boyle also exposed that the liver CAT Scans and ultrasounds used by Dr. Noel to dismiss anti-viral treatment for Mumia were contrary to subsequent tests that showed possible liver damage.

After initially stating that “It was anything but clear” that Mumia should get treatment, Noel finally was forced to agree with Boyle that Mumia’s base line tests for key Hep C indicators were grounds for his receiving the anti-viral cure. Mumia has a 63% chance of having cirrhosis of his liver; already has significant fibrosis (scarring of the liver); “anemia of chronic disease;” and low blood platelets in addition to the severe extra hepatic skin condition.

Toward the end of the previous day’s session Attorney Neal made another blunder when she attempted to insert evidence of a secret new Hep C “interim protocol” just developed by the DOC in December, but kept under wraps from public view. Noel expressed reluctance to even let Mumia’s attorneys or Judge Mariani view the document unless they signed a confidentiality agreement not to disclose its contents.

Before court started on the final day (Dec. 23) the DOC attorneys again tried to pressure Robert Boyle and Bret Grote to sign. Both refused, aware that Prison Radio had already filed a request for the document under PA’s “Right to Know” policy.

It also came out in Dr. Noel’s testimony that under the DOC’s new protocols only 5 out of an estimated 5,000 prisoners with chronic Hep C were being treated with the new anti-viral drug beginning this fall – less than 1/10th of one percent. The number of prisoners treated dropped from around 20 under the 2013 treatment protocol using
Interferon. During the 22 months while the new protocols were being developed no prisoner were treated for Hep C.

Noel also testified to the number of hoops the new protocol force chronic Hep C inmates to undergo just to be considered for treatment. Yet nothing in the protocols appears to ever *mandate* use of the new life-saving anti-viral drugs.

One final hurdle in the protocol is that to get “consideration for treatment for Hep C” an endoscopy of the throat (EDG) is required. And even then the only inmates who might be treated must have an immediate risk of “blood vessels bursting in their throats.” Under the protocols the DOC might consider patients “sick enough to treat for Hep C” if they demonstrate “esophageal-varices with a raised portal pressure” as proof of cirrhosis (in other words be near death).