July 25, 2012 - United States District Court Agreed with Sentencing Argument

July 25, 2012, United States District Judge Casey Rodgers agrees with Mr. Kent's sentencing argument in a so-called "pill mill" drug case involving two doctors and a clinic owner of three pain clinics who were convicted after trial of conspiracy to violate 21 U.S.C. Section 846 and 841(b)(1) that the maximum statutory penalty for the drug offense was not twenty years as the Government had thought, but only three years. Mr. Kent was retained to represent one of the two doctors in the case for sentencing and appeal, after the case had already gone to trial.  In reviewing the presentence report and indictment, Mr. Kent recognized an error that had gone undetected over the course of the litigation and trial - that the indictment combined in a single count multiple classes of controlled substances, but that the Government had not requested a special jury verdict to have the jury determine the drug quantity by unanimous verdict as to each type and class of controlled substance.  Under a line of sentencing case authority known as the Dale-Rhynes cases, Mr. Kent realized that under these circumstances the Court was limited to imposing the statutory maximum sentence applicable to the least serious of the various classes of controlled substances named in the drug conspiracy count, in this case, the indictment alleged drugs ranging from oxycontin to xanax.  Oxycontin was subject to a twenty year statutory maximum but xanax was subject to only a three year maximum sentence.  The result of this error was that the drug count went down from twenty years to three years.  Mr. Kent's own client, however was named in a money laundering count which carried a twenty year maximum by itself, so as to Mr. Kent's own client the net effect was to reduce the exposure from 40 years to 23 years (which was some benefit because the guideline range exceeded 23 years and was also of potentially greater effect for the clinic owner who faced a guideline range of life, and is now also limited to 23 years).  However, a co-defendant doctor in the case was charged only with a single drug conspiracy count, and as to him his sentencing exposure was reduced from twenty years to only three years.  Mr. Kent made his objection in response to the presentence report which had shown the sentencing exposure to be 20 years for the drug count and had shown sentencing guidelines in excess of thirty years (and life as to the clinic owner).  The Government conceded error in its sentencing memorandum and at sentencing July 25, 2012 the District Court accepted the Government's concession.