"Virginia Doctor's 500k Opioid Doses Conviction Overturned"
Dr. Joel Smithers, who was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for prescribing over 500,000 opioids in less than two years, has had his conviction overturned due to a jury instruction error. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the instruction misstated the law and ordered a new trial for Smithers, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. Smithers was originally convicted in 2019 on hundreds of counts of illegally prescribing controlled substances and was accused of causing the death of a patient.