Jailed OxyContin Doctor Seeks Retrial
March 7 -- OxyContin can be a godsend to people with chronic pain. But drug abusers have quickly found that when the prescription painkiller tablets are chewed, snorted, or injected, they deliver a heroin-like high.
Florida Panhandle physician Dr. James Graves, who faces 30 years in prison, knows about that high all too well.
Last month, a state circuit court jury in Milton, Fla. convicted Graves of four counts of manslaughter, a single count of racketeering and five counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. He was charged in connection with the deaths of four of his patients to whom he had prescribed OxyContin. The verdict made him the first doctor in the nation to be convicted of manslaughter or murder for deaths related to the powerful prescription painkiller.
Graves, who is seeking a retrial, testified that he was unaware that patients were abusing the drugs, and that no one would have died if the OxyContin had been taken as prescribed.
"I did have patients who had been former drug addicts in my practice, but I did not actively prescribe the drug to anybody I knew to be active addicts," Graves said on Good Morning America from the Santa Rosa County Jail in Milton, Fla.
Dr. Paul Doering, a professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Florida who testified twice during the trial, had a harsh appraisal of Graves' testimony: "Dr. Graves portrays himself as the victim of overzealous prosecutors, bent on locking up innocent doctors in this country," Doering said. "The only victims in this case were the hundreds of patients to whom he doled out the drugs."
Motion for a Retrial
The doctor's attorney, Ed Ellis, filed a motion this week arguing that jurors failed to understand the evidence and the judge's instructions during the trial. "The verdict of the jury was based upon bias, passion, misinformation and prejudices," Ellis said in court papers.
During the trial, defense attorneys argued that Graves' patients were addicts who lied and exaggerated symptoms in order to get the doctor to write them prescriptions.
