09 May 2012: Justice at Last for Natasha Vanwasshenova
In my research for this blog, I come upon a lot of stories about people ratting themselves out. In particular, in the last week, there have been two cases of people charged with murder (more or less) because they gave some recently dead person drugs. In each case, it was the person charged who told this to the police. Let me be very clear:You have a right to remain silent. Talking to the police will not make your life better. Do not incriminate yourself.
As an object lesson, I present the pretty and sad girl in the picture on the left: Natasha Vanwasshenova. She is a sex worker whose client died while they had sex. According to the Detroit Free Press, "Vanwasshenova admitted to police she had supplied him earlier in the evening with a small amount of heroin at his request." The medical examiner found that the man died of a heroin overdose. Ms. Vanwasshenova was charged with one of these "providing drugs that cause someone to die" laws.
She should have remained silent. But that's not the big story here.
Vanwasshenova's lawyer—Charles Toby—decided that the case against his client stank. He hired a cardiologist to review the findings of the medical examiner. According to him, the man died of a heart attack, not a heroin overdose. The medical examiner then reopened the case and found—Quelle surprise!—his initial findings were wrong; the man died of a heart attack.
What this shows, and has been shown many times before whenever anyone has the ability to check, is that the scientific support staffs of the criminal justice system are just prosecutorial lackeys who will come to any conclusion that the prosecutor's office wants. (See what happened to Jim Hogshire.) The only truth that matters to these people is the public truth that might embarrass them. They are not scientists are we normally think of them.
Anyone who knows anything about opioid overdose would know that they don't happen quickly. So given what happened in this case, there was no reason to believe that it had been an overdose. Except that there was heroin at the scene and a convenient sex worker to act as a scapegoat. And even though they didn't get Vanwasshenova for life, they did get her for 14 months that she will never get back and never get compensated for.
In the end, Vanwasshenova took the high ground. Again, the Detroit Free Press:
This morning, Vanwasshenova, still shackled, apologized to the dead man’s family, "and to my family, and to thank my lawyer for working so hard to get my charges changed," she said.
If only those in power showed a fraction of this dignity and humility.
C-Kel wrote:
Great article, however, I had an issue with one of your quotes. You state: "Anyone who knows anything about opioid overdose would know that they don't happen quickly."
I have to disagree here to an extent. In my experience, potentially fatal overdoses can happen relatively quickly. In 2011, I experienced an overdose almost immediately after shooting some heroin after two months of clean time. As is the case with the majority of overdoses I've witnessed, I misjudged both the purity of the dope and my (lack of) tolerance. The guy who was used with me told me that I fell out around 30 seconds after I hit and that the paramedics had to use naloxone to bring me back.