Innocence Project Files Complaint to Revoke Dr. Hayne's Medical License

Radley Balko | April 8, 2008

I'll have more on Mississippi's wacky medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne over the next few days. But today, the national and Mississippi Innocence Projects have filed a whopping 1,000-page complaint to the Mississippi Board of State Medical Licensure calling for the revocation of Hayne's medical license.

The report "outlines several violations – spanning two decades – of the Mississippi state law that regulates medical practice," including the Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks cases, as well as several of the cases I first reported for reason last October.

From the press release:

“Steven Hayne’s long history of misconduct, incompetence and fraud has sent truly innocent people to death row or to prison for life. This is precisely why regulations are in place to revoke medical licenses. Steven Hayne should never practice medicine in Mississippi again, and the complaint we filed today is an important step toward restoring integrity in forensic science statewide – and restoring confidence in the state’s criminal justice system,” said Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project.

[...]

“We have only presented the tip of the iceberg to the State Board of Medical Licensure, but this evidence shows Steven Hayne’s unprofessional, dishonorable and unethical conduct that has deceived, defrauded and harmed the public,” said W. Tucker Carrington, Director of the Mississippi Innocence Project.

The complaint filed today says, “We believe the conduct in this complaint alone is sufficient to justify immediate revocation of Dr. Hayne’s license … His work compromises the accuracy and integrity of medicine and criminal justice throughout the state. We urge you to put an end to his misconduct through an expeditious, thorough investigation of his work and revocation of his license."

In February, I spoke with the head of the Mississippi State Medical Association, who said she would move to revoke Hayne's membership in that organization.

Comments

|4.8.08 @ 4:44PM|#

Why are you picking on the guy?

TallDave|4.8.08 @ 4:46PM|#

I'm telling you, we're better off with the guy with the cart who just yells "Bring out your dead!"

I bet he never wrongfully convicted anyone.

Well, OK, there was that one guy who wasn't quite dead and needed to be finished off. Still comes out ahead overall I think.

|4.8.08 @ 4:53PM|#

Radley, I heard through the grapevine that Dr Hayne doesn't like you.

Mississippi Board of State Medical Licensure, I advise that you don't make fools of yourselves here.

|4.8.08 @ 5:00PM|#

Radley might not want to get arrested in Mississippi.

|4.8.08 @ 5:09PM|#

anti-drug war judge from Orange County...pretty cool guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hb6l5XbBrg

|4.8.08 @ 5:14PM|#

DeKalb Ex Medical Examiner Focus of Grand Jury Report:

http://www.ajc.com/health/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2008/03/30/grandjury_0330.html

squarooticus|4.8.08 @ 5:15PM|#

Yeah, if I were Radley, I'd never go to or pass through Mississippi for any reason. Seriously. It's too bad he has to worry about self-important criminals, their hired thugs, and their illusion of legitimacy, but that's the world we live in. The people get the government they deserve.

|4.8.08 @ 5:37PM|#

This bastard has to know by now his days are numbered.

(Truth be told, I'm just overwhelmingly happy this isn't another troofer thread).

db|4.8.08 @ 5:44PM|#

The people get the government they deserve.

Huh? More like "most people get the government they deserve. The people who are paying attention get the shaft."

|4.8.08 @ 5:45PM|#

(Truth be told, I'm just overwhelmingly happy this isn't another troofer thread).

Not so fast, Kool.

If Mississippi can cover up what this guy has been doing in plain sight for decades, why can't the NSA/CIA/DIA/[insert acronym here], with the infinitely greater resources of the federal government cover up a one-time event? Huh? Answer me that, Bush fan-boy!

Besides, the government relies on a bunch of autopsies of "bodies" allegedly "found" in the rubble to prove they were actual commercial planes hitting those buildings. Well, we see how reliable that is, don't we?

|4.8.08 @ 5:53PM|#

Answer me that, Bush fan-boy!

R C, you're right, my bad!

FWIW, I'm more a fan of the whole New World Order/Illuminati/One Government [insert grand overarching puppetmaster group] cabal, as opposed to a specific government intelligence department.

And, Radley, I wouldn't even fly over Mississippi (lest you have to parachute out of a burning plane) if I were you.

Rimfax|4.8.08 @ 5:59PM|#

Curse your eyes, R C Dean!

|4.8.08 @ 6:17PM|#

Rimfax-

Pretty funny shit on the reason wikia, especially the "Category:Troll" section.

I tried to create an account, but Kool was already taken which forces me to do something I almost never do, type an emoticon: :-(

|4.8.08 @ 6:22PM|#

Dammit!

"...never do, i.e. type..."

Geotpf|4.8.08 @ 6:54PM|#

So, did Dr. South ever kick him out of the Mississippi State Medical Association?

Oh, and real good work on this series of articles. Nice to expose some Reason into a backwards place like Mississippi.

|4.8.08 @ 6:56PM|#

Radley's excellent and engaging investigative journalism (so often missing from libertarian mags over the years) should manage to get this guy removed from power and get some half way decent reform in Mississsippi. If this happens he'll of had more of a positive, direct influence on public policy than 30 years of Cato's unread books/journals. A raise for Mr. Radley!

Travis|4.8.08 @ 7:02PM|#

Way to go Balko! Everyone who reads Reason knows you've been exposing this charlatan for the last couple of years. This is what journalism is suppose to be about.

|4.8.08 @ 7:49PM|#

Great work, Radley, and props to the Innocence Project. The US needs more journalists like you!

|4.8.08 @ 8:06PM|#

Radley has precious little room to throw stones at corruption, having been an enthusiastic paricipant in the Ron Paul calumny. He even managed to get my I.P. banned from hit & Run for exposing his corrupt ass. The guy can dish it out, but he can't take it.

Justin Raimondo exposed the Reason boys as establishment tools. The have never even had the courage to respond to his expose'.

zoltan|4.8.08 @ 8:32PM|#

Wow, this guy's on the level of Deep Throat or something. Raimondo as Bernstein? Who makes Woodward?

|4.8.08 @ 8:34PM|#

Bravo, Radley. This is very well done.

|4.8.08 @ 10:43PM|#

Hayne needs to have his medical license revoked immediately! I've done some research and found that the vast majority of his patients end up dead!

|4.8.08 @ 10:54PM|#

Let's see: Raimondo produced a stunning expose showing that Reason is guilty of doing things that Raimondo doesn't like! Horrors!

Badley, why don't you and the rest of your paleo ilk retreat back into your hole (by that I mean your fortified bunker. By fortified bunker, I mean your mother's basement) and go back to jerking each other off to stories of the time you got to be in the same hotel as Murray Rothbard? I hate to resort to sheer abuse, but you and a large number of LRC types have been embarrassing the rest of us for a long time. Take your visions of impossible anarchy, (where everyone is free to be a Christian, and the colored folk are conspicuously absent) crush them into a fist-sized ball and jam them down your throat. At least then you'll be forced to be quiet, and the grown-ups will be able to continue our conversation.
Get a job and move out of Mommy's basement.
Or just go die.
Either way, save your babbling for folks who share your psychosis.

|4.8.08 @ 11:25PM|#

From the way you bitter paleo fucks hang on Reason's nuts day after day, I'd say you numbskulls are jealous.

Brian|4.9.08 @ 1:59AM|#

The Mississippi and New Orleans Innocence Projects seem to get all of the really interesting cases...

|4.10.08 @ 9:22AM|#

"The people get the government they deserve."

They cheated didn't they? (twice?)

Thanks Mr. Balko for all your hard work (this really was hard work) exposing Hayne. I have a personal interest in all of this because I've dedicated the last 2 years of my life trying to save a 15 year old boy from life in prison after Hayne testified at his trial to things he didn't know but passed off as fact, as if he were there. It's been hell undoing his crap and a boy just trying to breath another breath is doing life. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. I'd say the calvary has arrived. But it's not over, far from it.