USA v. Xiulu Ruan, et al., No. 19-11508 (11th Cir. 2023)
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On remand from the Supreme Court. Ruan v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2370 (2022) (Ruan II), the Eleventh Circuit ordered supplemental briefing to address whether the mens rea jury instruction used in this case was error and whether any such error was harmless. Among other things, Defendants challenged the jury instructions used for their substantive drug convictions under 21 U.S.C. Section 841(a), which prohibits the “knowing or intentional” dispensing of controlled substances “except as authorized.” The relevant drugs in this case are only “authorized” to be dispensed pursuant to a prescription, and an effective prescription must be made for a “legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his professional practice.” Defendants requested that the jury be instructed that their good faith be a defense to an allegation that they acted outside the “usual course of professional practice.”
The Eleventh Circuit vacated in part and affirmed in part Defendants’ convictions. The court explained that here, the district court did not adequately instruct the jury that Defendants must have “knowingly or intentionally” prescribed outside the usual course of their professional practices. At a minimum without the limiting qualification that only subjective good faith was sufficient for conviction, the jury was authorized to convict under the sort of objective good faith or honest effort standard rejected by the Supreme Court. Therefore, the court vacated Defendants’ substantive drug convictions under Section 841(a). The court vacated Defendants’ sentence for all counts and remanded for resentencing on the surviving counts.
This opinion or order relates to an opinion or order originally issued on January 8, 2020.
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