On August 9, 2012 the AAPS filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a $600,000 award due to prosecutorial abuse of a physician acquitted of prescribing violations.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not “granted cert.” and heard a case of overzealous prosecution of a physician for prescribing in several decades. Meanwhile, sentences of 20 years and more are now commonly imposed against good physicians based on drug addicts who have a medical prescription in their system when they die.
AAPS is taking this unusual opportunity to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to take this case (Shaygan v. United States, No. 12-44) and address the overzealous prosecution and punishment of physicians.
Dr. Ali Shaygan, a Mayo-trained family practice physician was practicing in Miami. He had prescribed methadone to a young man who died in his sleep several days later from a variety of drugs. Cocaine and other drugs were found in the man’s body post-mortem, but an autopsy also revealed a potentially fatal amount of methadone in his system.
Dr. Shaygan, who had prescribed the methadone, became the scapegoat. First he was set up with a sting operation: two undercover agents posing as patients. Supposedly Dr. Shaygan did only a “minimal” examination on them before prescribing “controlled substances” (the court opinion does not say what) and without the patients’ presenting any medical records (since when are patients expected to present their own medical records???).
Dr. Shaygan declined to enter into a plea bargain, and stood for a 3-week trial on 141 criminal counts, carrying a mandatory minimum of 20 years in jail.
The jury acquitted the physician on all counts after merely a few hours of deliberation. Then the judge sanctioned the lead government attorneys, and applied the Hyde Amendment to force the government to pay Shaygan’s $600,000+ legal fees. But on appeal, the 11th Circuit reversed by a 2-1 vote, and then denied a petition for rehearing en banc over several dissenters.
During the trial, there was a surprise revelation that government agents had arranged for unauthorized, secret recordings of conversations between a government witness and Shaygan’s defense attorney.
Now this is on petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, with Dr. Shaygan trying to reinstate the attorney fee award against the government. Ironically, the lead federal prosecutor who was accused of the wrongdoing in connection with the trial was subsequently arrested for allegedly exposing himself to a minor by swimming in an open pool in his boxer shorts, and then allegedly evading arrest. But those charges were never filed against him, and he may still remain in office.
AAPS brief available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/102573196/Shaygan-v-United-States-Amicus-Brief-of-AAPS
