Dr. Hurwitz Asks for Our Help…

The following is a letter from Dr. William Hurwitz requesting financial support to defray his crushing legal expenses. As Dr. Hurwitz notes in his letter (below) his case has been very well documented and analyzed; the issues and principles are clear and of dire import.

This letter was originally sent after Billy’s successful appeal. The costs of his defense skyrocketed since in preparation for the re-trial in progress.

Please contribute. Thanks. ..alex…

Dr. William E. Hurwitz 18 October 2006

Dear Colleague,

I am writing to ask for your help in defending myself against the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) effort to make a national example of me in its campaign to intimidate physicians who treat severe chronic pain.

As you may know, on August 22, 2006, the federal Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously overturned my December 2004 conviction – and 25-year sentence – for drug trafficking charges arising out of my medical treatment of patients suffering from severe chronic pain. This ruling was a resounding repudiation of the DEA’s outrageous theory that physicians who prescribe opioid analgesics may be criminally liable if the DEA disagrees with their prescribing practices, regardless of the doctors’ good faith intention to provide patients the best medical care possible. The case has been remanded for a new trial.

The success in the appeals court was due in no small part to the support of leading institutions and practitioners in the field of pain management. In addition to the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Pain Foundation, the National Pain Foundation, the National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain, and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, distinguished practitioners including Drs. Russell K. Portenoy, Richard Payne, Peggy Compton, Celeste Johnson, and Robert Twillman, Ph.D, all submitted friend of the court briefs, impressing upon the appeals court the significance of the issue of good faith not only for the legal fate of one lone practitioner, but for the medical fate of millions of patients and the professional security of thousands of doctors.Copies of these and other briefs in the case, as well as the circuit court ruling, and other materials, are available at:

The Hurwitz Collection;
Amicus Brief - Portenoy et al.
My article: The Challenge of Prescription Drug Misuse: A Review and Commentary, from Vol. 6, No. 2 (2005) of Pain Medicine.)

But the DEA knows that this appeals court ruling will mean nothing to me – or to millions of pain patients and their physicians – if they can prove their ability to crush doctors regardless of the law.

A new trial poses new challenges and opens new opportunities. The legal standard of “objective good faith” will require the jury to decide whether I acted in accordance with what I reasonably believed to be proper medical practice. In my last trial, the prosecutors vigorously and successfully fought the introduction into evidence of the DEA’s August 2004 Frequently Asked Questions and Answers for Health Care Professionals and Law Enforcement Personnel (FAQs). Our attempt to introduce the FAQs in the first trial led to their repudiation by the DEA and precipitous withdrawal from the DEA’s website. These events strongly suggest that prosecutors understood that my practice conformed to the principles expressed in the FAQs and that aspects of my practice they sought to demonize would find support in that document. The coming trial provides a new opportunity and a more secure legal basis to introduce the FAQs and related expert testimony and to educate the jury and the public about the complex clinical issues that arise in the management of chronic pain with opioid medications.

Although legally presumed innocent because of the appeals court ruling, I am still in prison. The re-trial will be presided over by Judge Leonard Wexler – the same judge who barred the FAQs, refused to let scores of patients tell the jury how my treatment had restored normal lives to them, prevented the jury from hearing that the Virginia Medical Board found me to be practicing in good faith, and then instructed the jurors to ignore evidence of my good faith. Last week, Judge Wexler denied me release on bail. He argued that I was more of a flight risk now than before, because I now know that I can be convicted. Judge Wexler considered irrelevant the facts that I had scrupulously complied with bail conditions in 2004 after my arrest, and that my prospects in a new trial have substantially improved since I will now be permitted the defense of good faith. At this moment, my lawyers are working to prevent the prison authority from moving me to a facility in Ohio , hundreds of miles away from my family, attorneys and records. Judge Wexler and the prosecutors know well that from a jail cell it will be virtually impossible for me to adequately prepare my defense against scores of charges involving tens of thousands of pages of medical records and other documentation.

Even so, I believe that with the new ground rules, I can win this case. But I cannot do it alone.

My family and friends have now spent over $700,000 on legal fees and expenses on my case. An effective defense in a re-trial will cost hundreds of thousands more, even at the steeply discounted rates my lawyers have been willing to accept. A new trial is scheduled for March 2007, and at this time we simply don’t know whether we will be able to raise enough money to retain the skilled legal counsel this trial requires. I urgently need your financial support. I hope you will agree that a defeat in this case will be catastrophic for the profession, and that your contribution can make a critical difference.

It has been over 20 years since Dr. Portenoy put the issue of opioid treatment of chronic pain on the professional and social agenda. Yet the struggle to set this treatment on a secure legal and social foundation is far from over. Patients continue to suffer, not only from unrelieved pain, but from the suspicion and neglect of a frightened medical community. My case presents an opportunity to establish humane boundaries for pain practice and to expose the misguided legal environment hostile to the treatment of severe, chronic pain in this country. Please help me in this endeavor.

Contributions may be sent to:

The Pain Management Legal Defense Trust c/o Kenneth Hurwitz P. O. Box 958 Village Station New York , NY 10014

Please don’t hesitate to contact my brother, Kenneth Hurwitz, at mltsui@nyc.rr.com, should you have any questions or desire further information. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Dr. William Hurwitz Alexandria Adult Detention Center 2001 Mill Road Alexandria, VA 22314

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