Cochran Firm: Judge, Don't Make the Jail Tell About Larry Neal!

"BUT WAIT A MINUTE!  We thought you were our lawyers!" Larry Neal, a lifelong mental patient with severe heart problems, died under secret arrest in Shelby County Jail on August 1, 2003.  The Cochran Firm was immediately hired as his family's wrongful death attorneys, but the law firm chose to work for the family's defendants, the jail, rather than honoring their contract for legal services.  The managing partner of The Cochran Firm's Memphis office was actually a past chairman of the Shelby County Commission and still a highly valued member of that body.  Of course, this information was not disclosed to Larry Neal's family before contract.  

Five years and two lawsuits later, The Cochran Firm is still determined to protect Shelby County Jail from disclosing the circumstances of Larry Neal's death.  The latest pleading The Cochran Firm filed in Neals v. The Cochran Firm in USDC, the firm motioned for the judge to please don't make Memphis/Shelby County Jail reveal how Larry Neal died.  After all, the reasons for Larry's secret incarceration in Shelby County Jail and the method of his mysterious death are the biggest secrets of the 21st century, and The Cochran Firm has gone to a good deal of trouble and negative exposure already to keep it that way.   Their efforts have been joined by a court of law and mainstream media. See http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

Because the Neals v. The Cochran Firm case is public, the court docket and pleadings filed can be reviewed by anyone with a free USDC PACER account.  See this link:

COURT DOCKET -  http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-gandce/case_no-1:2007cv01935/case_id-145173/  

Keeping the facts surrounding this disabled African American man's jail death secret is apparently the entire reason The Cochran Firm defrauded the Neal family in the first place after signing a contract for legal services with Larry's elderly mother which the law firm had no intention of honoring.  Therefore, it really would not suit for Memphis/Shelby County Jail to be required to reveal the truth now, five years later.

Larry's family knew nothing about the dual role the managing partner of The Cochran Firm, Julian Bolton, had as both Cochran Firm lawyer and County Commissioner.  By the time the family knew about the law firm's undisclosed conflict of interest, only six weeks remained on Tennessee's statute of limitations, and it was already too late for Larry's family to find an honest attorney to demand records and accountability for Larry's secret arrest and death.  Since that time, all requests for records have been ignored or denied.  The USDOJ, which was in a supervisory role over the jail after other abuses of prisoners, refuses to investigate Larry Neal's wrongful death, despite the fact that it is the responsibility of the USDOJ to protect the rights of institutionalized persons.  Of course, the rules of justice are different for African American men and mentally ill citizens.  Laws are apparently meant only to prosecute, not protect, those types of people - the mentally dysfunctional and minorities.  The "inalienable" right to life has never been inalienable for some citizens.

After all the trouble The Cochran Firm has endured to keep Larry Neal's arrest and death in  Memphis/Shelby County Jail's secret, and all the help they received from mainstream media and others to maintain the shroud of secrecy, it should not be surprising that The Cochran Firm requested the USDC judge to maintain the confidentiality of how this private citizen came to be arrested for 18 days until he died, while the jail repeatedly and falsely told his family and social worker he was not incarcerated.  What could be worse than the shooting death of Oscar Grant, which the entire nation knows about?  What could be worse than the Tasering death of mentally ill New Yorker, Inman Morales, which we all saw on video?  What exactly happened to Larry Neal to warrant the lawyer fraud and conspiracy to deny his family due process of law that followed his death?

God knows the truth already, and He will reveal it all by and by.  Perhaps the delay in full disclosure and justice is because God believes in full nets.  Maybe there are even more people involved in the denial of due process of law in Larry's case.  So far, we have a jail that secretly arrests private citizens and lies to keep them away from their prescription psychiatric and heart drugs until death; a Department of Justice that refuses to do its duty and investigate a wrongful death in a jail it is already charged to supervise; a law firm that enters into fraudulent contract and lies repeatedly about its public identity, but is allowed to conduct business under a designation of P.C. without even being registered in the State of Georgia; a superior court judge who dismissed Larry's family's lawsuit by saying there is no Cochran Firm office in Georgia, while it continues advertising and conducting business as such; mainstream media, which refuses to report these events but actively participates in defrauding the public by inducing citizens to become this law firm's customers (mostly African Americans, so it's OK); and a law firm so anxious to protect its REAL CLIENT, THE JAIL, that it begs the USDC judge in the Neal's pending federal lawsuit for contract fraud to not make the jail tell Larry's family diddly squat about his secret arrest and death.  Could there be more agencies, groups, or people to fit in this net?

Perhaps Larry's family is better off not knowing what Shelby County Jail did to Larry Neal that warrants all the effort poured out by so many people, companies, and government agencies to keep it secret.  Maybe our nightmares about what happened to Larry are better than the reality.  Until this happened, this writer certainly had no idea that Constitutional rights had been suspended in America - at least for some citizens.

The author's links below suffer heavy censorship.  Please comment below if you have trouble accessing any of them.

Mary Neal

Website:    http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

My page:   http://www.care2.com/c2c/people/profile.html?pid=513396753

My group:  http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

Articles:      http://my.nowpublic.com/search?fulltext=1&type=story&keys=mary+neal