More Excellent Journalism on Retrial of Dr. Hurwitz

More Excellent Journalism on Retrial of Dr. Hurwitz; Alex DeLuca; War on Doctors/Pain Crisis; 2007-05-06.

The quality of the journalism on the retrial of Dr. William Hurwitz has been outstanding. Tierney, Sullum, Borden, Balko, Szalavitz and now Ken Moore, see below, have all followed the Hurwitz case from before the first trial in 2004 through the appeal in 2006, and they bring great depth of context and understanding of the complexities of the case to their current articles.

More surprising has been the quality of the public Comments posted in response to these journalists work. I am almost done preparing a selection of this public commentary into the Collection of Observation and Analysis of the Hurwitz Retrial, which already includes major newspaper articles, journalists’ blogs, and Pain Relief advocacy community commentary.

Ken Moore, veteran Hurwitz reporter [see: Pain Doctor's Trial] has written a very good article reviewing the trials of Dr. Hurwitz. Along with an informative sidebar, Moore provides particularly good detail about the number of witnesses and counts, and about expert witness testimony in the trials:

Pain Doctor Convicted, Again Ken Moore; The Connection Newspapers; 2007-05-04.

I especially appreciate his emphasis on the government’s duplicity from the start:

The “sad irony” of the government’s case against pain doctor William E. Hurwitz is the evidence used against him was taken from patient files Hurwitz himself sent on a quarterly basis to the Drug Enforcement Agency, said defense attorneys Lawrence S. Robbins and Richard Sauber.

And he quotes Dr. Hurwitz on the overall insanity of the situation:

“It seemed to me a kind of absurdity, that doing what I had done would lead to any criminal culpability,” [Hurwitz] said, when he took the stand in his own defense in his trial this past month in federal court. “I spent my life trying to contribute to people’s well being and health.”

The Drug War Journalism and Advocacy Collection

The Hurwitz Collection

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