Doctor ‘Pill Mill’ Convictions Partly Undone After SCOTUS Ruling

Two doctors convicted of unlawfully dispensing opioids had some of their convictions vacated when the Eleventh Circuit ruled that their jurors’ instructions on criminal intent didn’t comply with recent US Supreme Court guidance.

The jury instructions, which indicated that a prescription for controlled substances is lawful if done in “good faith” and in accordance with accepted medical standards, didn’t adequately convey that the defendants must have “knowingly or intentionally” prescribed outside the usual course of their professional practices, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held Thursday in an opinion vacating the doctors’ substantive drug convictions.

• The court’s ...