Posted on 04/27/2007 11:19:07 PM PDT by neverdem
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – After deliberating for seven days in federal court here, a jury late this afternoon found Dr. William Hurwitz guilty on 16 counts of drug trafficking. Dr. Hurwitz, whose legal battles over his opioid prescriptions made him a hero to some chronic-pain patients, was not convicted of the other 29 counts against him.
The bad news for Dr. Hurwitz (and his many supporters who have been posting here) is that he remains in prison and will be sentenced on July 13 for writing prescriptions of OxyContin and other opioids to drug dealers and addicts. But his prospects are certainly better than they were after his first trial in 2004, when he was convicted on 50 counts related to drug trafficking, including several with mandatory 20-year sentences for causing bodily injury or death. He was sentenced to 25 years following that conviction (which was overturned on appeal, resulting in a retrial that lasted more than a month).
The counts on which he was convicted today each carry a 20-year maximum sentence and no minimum requirement, giving Judge Leonie M. Brinkema great discretion in sentencing. She could sentence him to as little as the time already served by him, two and a half years, which would be longer than the prison terms of some of his patients who were caught peddling the drugs he prescribed to them.
Dr. Hurwitz was originally charged in this trial with 50 counts of drug trafficking and conspiracy, but the judge dismissed the most serious charges (involving bodily injury or death), leaving the jury to consider 45 counts involving different prescriptions. They found him guilty on 16 counts and acquitted him on 17. They said they were unable to reach a verdict on the remaining 12 counts, which were then dismissed by the...
(Excerpt) Read more at tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I hope that this prosecutor suffers a crippling injury and severe chronic pain. The dirty filthy bastard should suffer and suffer and suffer without any pain relief.
Stick to Tylenol so you don't become an addict, you heartless heap of dung.
--ccm
Practicing medicine isn't "distribution".
As a doctor myself, I can tell you this isn’t easy. You are supposed to alleviate suffering, but if you get careless the drug seekers talk to each other and you get overwhelmed. Sometimes it seems it would be easier if the crap was legal so those who just wanted to get high didn’t need to bother a doctor...
The way things are now you really have to maintain a delicate balance.
Suffering is noble, suffering is holy, may the prosecutor and everyone else who supports these insane laws have a noble and holy end.
Yeah, that's right. But the patient doesn't call back claiming to have lost his Lipitor, and needing to get a much higher dosage.
That may be true, but the fact remains that if you are a MD, you are in the drug business.
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