A Good Guy Gets Sick

Last year I wrote a column about Nick Cheolas, a young guy from the Detroit suburbs who became interested in the criminal justice system after witnessing some appalling behavior from police and other local officials in a case involving his family. Cheolas went on to law school at the University of Michigan, where his experience at home spurred him to get involved with the school's innocence clinic. There, he worked on a team that won the release of Dwayne Provience, a man who had spent nearly a decade in prison for a murder it's pretty clear he didn't commit. (After much hemming and hawing, prosecutors finally announced in March that they wouldn't attempt to try Provience again.)

I'm sorry to say that Nick's story has taken a bummer of a turn. Last July he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He has started a blog (Arrested Development fans: take note of the title) where he writes about his treatment, opines on legal issues, and discusses the various other topics about which we bloggers tend to bloviate. If you'd like to click over, I'm sure he'd appreciate knowing he has support out in libertarian land.

Also, if the idea of following an online diary of cancer treatment sounds morose—and it did to me when I was first sent the link—Nick's sense of humor considerably lightens the experience. His blog's tagline:

I don't fight cancer because I fear death. I fight cancer because I fear Mitch Albom writing about me after death.

Get better, Nick. No one else wants to see that happen, either.