July 18, 2024
Two Alabama doctors accused of unlawfully prescribing patients fentanyl and other opioids failed to shave time off their lengthy prison sentences despite a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that raised the bar for such prosecutions.
November 06, 2023
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition Monday from an Alabama opioid prescriber who asked the justices to review whether lower courts have ignored the tougher prosecution standard established in his own Supreme Court case.
June 27, 2023
Against long odds, two doctors facing decades in prison implored the U.S. Supreme Court to harmonize jury instructions in opioid crisis prosecutions, insisting that innocence in one circuit could be guilt in another. They ultimately prevailed, but one year later, the circuit split surprisingly appears even starker, as one of the doctors eyes freedom, and the other still might live out his life behind bars.
June 05, 2023
A doctor who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to demand stronger proof of intentional misconduct in prosecutions of opioid prescribers is seeking a sequel to his triumph last year, accusing federal appeals courts of widely flouting the demand and effectively allowing regulators to invent felony offenses.
January 05, 2023
The Eleventh Circuit tossed drug-related convictions against two Alabama doctors Thursday, after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in their case called for a substantive showing of intentional impropriety when federal opioid prosecutors go after pills-for-profits schemes under the Controlled Substances Act.
October 11, 2022
Amid the U.S. Supreme Court's new standards for Controlled Substances Act cases, the U.S. Department of Justice is striving to salvage a sweeping suit targeting Walmart's sales of prescription narcotics, insisting that company officials "routinely ignored" their own suspicions about opioid orders.
September 09, 2022
The U.S. Department of Justice launched a "terribly flawed" criminal case against a drug distributor and several individuals amid pressure to alleviate Appalachia's opioid crisis, and a newly confirmed U.S. attorney displayed "courage and guts" by ending the case last month, defense counsel told Law360 in an expansive interview.
September 02, 2022
A torrid 2022 for health care litigation is entering a red-hot homestretch featuring fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court's explosive repudiation of abortion rights, the potential for three False Claims Act clashes at the high court, and the increasingly likely prospect of a funding fiasco for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
July 21, 2022
A spree of remarkable rulings has already made 2022 a jaw-dropping year for health care and pharmaceutical law, where the U.S. Supreme Court reshaped abortion rights, opioid crisis prosecutions, Medicare's rulemaking powers and vital sources of hospital income. At the midyear mark, Law360 recaps the rulings and analyzes their implications.
June 28, 2022
The U.S. Supreme Court's demand for a rock-solid showing of intentional impropriety when federal opioid prosecutors target pills-for-profits schemes under the Controlled Substances Act will send the U.S. Department of Justice scrambling to salvage its less sensational suits, attorneys say.