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Criminal Law: Physician Convicted for Recklessly Prescribing OxyContin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Kathleen Romanow
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Extract

Dr. James Graves was convicted of manslaughter, racketeering, and drug charges in association with overdose deaths of four of his patients from the painkiller OxyContin. A Florida court then sentenced the physician to 62.9 years in prison. This is the first criminal conviction of a doctor in the United States related to OxyContin deaths.

Dr. Graves, who ran a pain management office, was charged with recklessly writing prescriptions to those that could afford an office visit and failed to ask appropriate questions beforehand. Prosecutors in the case said that the physician prescribed drugs like OxyContin to as many as ninety patients a day, after only a short office visit. The prosecution claimed that Graves was “‘selling prescriptions for cash without any real examination, diagnostic testing, or follow-up, no consultation, no real assessment of their medical needs.’”

Type
Recent Developments in Health Law
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , Spring 2003 , pp. 154 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2003

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References

Florida v. Graves, No. 01-422-CFA (Fla. Cir. Ct. Feb. 20, 2002); Scandlen, M., “Graves Guilty: Pace Doctor Convicted in 4 Drug Deaths,” Pensacola News Journal, February 20, 2002, available at <http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/news/022002/Local/St001.shtml>..>Google Scholar
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