U. S. Supreme Court partially overturned decision in case of pill factory
2023.01.05 14:11
U. S. Supreme Court partially overturned decision in case of pill factory
Budrigannews.com – After the U.S. Supreme Court in June made it easier to prosecute physicians for illegally prescribing addictive drugs like opioids, a federal appeals court on Thursday overturned key parts of the convictions of two Alabama doctors who were accused of running a massive “pill mill.”
After concluding that the jurors in Xiulu Ruan’s case were incorrectly instructed on how to determine their guilt, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned their convictions for illegally dispensing controlled substances.
However, the three-judge panel did not overturn their other convictions for racketeering, conspiracy to violate the Controlled Substances Act, and accepting kickbacks from an insolvent opioid drug manufacturer, Insys Therapeutics Inc. Prosecutors now have to decide whether to retry Ruan and Couch or immediately resentencing them for their other convictions. Couch received a 20-year sentence, while Ruan was serving a 21-year sentence.
Couch’s attorney, Domingo Soto, stated that he was considering his options, which included pursuing a second appeal. Ruan’s attorney, Lawrence Robbins, declined to comment. Requests for clarification from the prosecution were not met.
According to the prosecution, Ruan and Couch abused their medical licenses by illegally prescribing powerful, addictive opioid painkillers without a valid medical reason through a Mobile, Alabama clinic that, between 2011 and 2015, filled nearly 300,000 controlled substance prescriptions.
According to the prosecution, they were also paid by Insys to prescribe its Subsys fentanyl spray. John Kapoor, the founder of Insys, and other executives were later found guilty of conspiring to bribe doctors to prescribe Subsys.
Ruan appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that his trial was unfair because jurors were not required to consider whether he had a “good faith” reason to believe his numerous opioid prescriptions were medically valid after the 11th Circuit largely upheld their 2017 trial convictions.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled in Ruan’s favor, saying that prosecutors must prove they knew defendants were distributing controlled substances like opioids once they produce evidence that they were authorized to do so.
However, the Supreme Court delegated the task of determining whether any errors in the jury instructions necessitated overturning his conviction to the 11th Circuit.
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