United States Eleventh Circuit

Conviction and sentence for various counts of wire fraud, health care fraud, and illegally prescribing narcotics outside the course of professional practice under the Controlled Substance Act, with death resulting in some instances, are affirmed over claims that: 1) there was insufficient evidence to support conviction on the counts charging him with providing controlled substances to patients that resulted in their deaths; 2) the trial court admitted prejudicial and irrelevant evidence of prescriptions of patients not the subject of any count; 3) he was prejudiced by the decision to move the trial to an inconvenient forum; 4) the jury was wrongly instructed as to intent and the burden of proof was impermissibly shifted to him; 5) the prosecutor misrepresented evidence to the court and the jury; 6) he was denied effective assistance of counsel; and 7) the trial court wrongly dismissed an African-American juror immediately after the jury had been charged.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/17/2008
• Published 01/17/2008

Judges

• FORRESTER, District Judge:, Before EDMONDSON, Chief Judge, HULL, Circuit Judge, and FORRESTER, District Judge.

Court

• United States Eleventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• John P. Flannery, II, Campbell, Miller, Zimmerman, P.C., Leesburg, VA, for Merrill., Nancy J. Hess, Pensacola, FL, E. Bryan Wilson, U.S. Atty., Tallahassee, FL, for U.S.