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Way below-guideline sentence for "drug dealer in a lab coat" prompts lots of questions

By Douglas A. Berman

This Los Angeles Times article reporting on a federal sentence handed down yesterday in California, which is headlined "4-year prison term ordered for 'drug-dealing doctor'," implicates nearly every challenging post-Booker federal sentencing issue that has been confounding federal judges and practioners for the last 5+ years.  Here are the fascinating details: A Duarte physician who prosecutors said was "nothing more than a drug dealer in a lab coat" was sentenced to four years in federal prison Wednesday for prescribing powerful and highly addictive pain killers to people who had no medical need for the drugs. The sentence was far less than the 17 years prosecutors had been seeking for Dr. Daniel J. Healy, and well below federal sentencing guidelines that called for a term of 17 to 22 years...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 15, 2010 (boomark / email).