Faced with multiple charges of overprescribing opioids to patients, a local doctor is seeking to have the case against her thrown out of court.
On behalf of Dr. Merideth Norris of Kennebunk, attorneys Timothy Zerillo, Amy Fairfield and Karen Wolfram filed two motions to dismiss the case in U.S. District Court on Sept. 19. The motions argue the case against Norris should be dropped because of vagueness in the law and a matter of federal authorities overstepping.
Norris indicted on 10 counts
Earlier this month, a grand jury indicted Norris, 52, on seven additional counts of issuing opioid prescriptions to patients that prosecutors are alleging were not for legitimate medical purposes, according to court documents. Last fall, Norris was indicted on 10 counts of the same charge.
Prosecutors allege that Norris “knowingly and intentionally” committed these 17 offenses. The counts cover a period from Oct. 21, 2021, through July 18, 2022, and include such substances as methadone, oxycodone, fentanyl and others.
Norris has pleaded not guilty to all charges. In one motion, the attorneys stated the federal Controlled Substances Act, which took effect in the early 1970s, does not define such phrases as “legitimate medical purpose” and “usual course of professional practice,” and therefore does not provide a standard “for the conduct it condemns.”
“Criminal statutes should define exactly what conduct will render a person liable to criminal penalties,” Zerillo stated.
If the case is not dismissed, Norris could face years in prison and hefty fines if convicted at trial.
In the other motion, Zerillo maintained that the authority given to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration is “not unlimited” under the Controlled Substances Act.
“Congress must make a clear statement authorizing the DEA to criminalize Dr. Norris’s conduct,” Zerillo wrote. “In fact, no such clear statement exists.”
Zerillo also stated that the attorney general’s authority is not meant to exceed the state’s regulatory authority. The AG, Zerillo argued, is not authorized to regulate the practice of medicine, in general.
“The state is accorded that authority,” Zerillo added. “Here, the state has expressly commended and licensed Dr. Norris’ practice.” Zerillo stated that Congress, in passing the Controlled Substances Act, never delegated the Department of Justice the power to define “authorized” conduct. He added that Norris “reasonably relied” on statutory guidance and protection when prescribing.
“By failing to define what is ‘authorized’ and by failing to delegate that task, Congress has failed to criminalize Dr. Norris’ conduct,” Zerillo said. “Dr. Norris has not defied the law because there was not valid proscription on her conduct.”
The attorneys stated that the problem with the case is “two-pronged,” in that Norris was not given “fair notice” that she was committing any offenses, and that the government is being given “standard-less and arbitrary” enforcement powers.
Outlier behaviors
According to the affidavit filed by an FBI agent last October, the case against Norris began to take shape when Walmart stopped filling out the prescriptions she made for her patients. The company concluded that Norris was overprescribing medications.
The agent had filed the affidavit as part of his application for a warrant to search Graceful Recovery, the center Norris operates at 58 Portland Road in Kennebunk.
Norris was arrested in October 2022 and charged with illegally distributing opioids and other controlled substances. In the affidavit, the agent cited Medicare statistics showing Norris with the highest rate in Maine of prescribing opioids per patient.
“The Medicare data indicates that Norris is in the 95th percentile for a number of outlier behaviors that are indicative of illegal prescribing,” the agent wrote in his affidavit.
According to the agent, 22 of Norris’s patients died between January 2018 and June 2022. During the same time frame, nine more of Norris’ patients died.
The agent said his investigation team had received incident reports and medical examiner reports for at least seven of Norris’s patients whose primary cause of death was an overdose.
The affidavit said data revealed that Norris prescribed controlled substances to multiple patients who died of overdoses within 45 days of receiving prescriptions from her.
The investigation focused on oxycodone, methadone, hydromorphone, diazepam, clonazepam and dextroamphetamine prescribed to three patients, according to court records.
The arrest of Norris was the first one made by the New England Prescription Opioid Strike Force. The strike force was launched in the summer of 2022 to combat the illegal prescribing of drugs during the opioid epidemic in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
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