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Disrupting “Pill Mills”: Using Data to Investigate and Prosecute Prescription Drug Diversion

Presented by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, Innovative Prosecution Solutions (IPS) Grantee

The opioid epidemic has devastated communities across the United States, resulting in hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the past two decades. In response, some state and local prosecutors have taken a data-driven approach to the crisis. This webinar spotlights the experiences of an Innovative Prosecution Solutions (IPS) grantee’s efforts to tackle one troubling aspect of the opioid epidemic—doctors and pharmacists who inappropriately disseminate opioid medications. Tamara Holland of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office in Texas discusses data-driven methods to identify and prosecute “pill-mill” practices, such as analyzing prescription history data through Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs and overdose death data from medical examiners’ offices.

Upon completion of this session, participants will be better able to:

– Collaborate with allied professionals to collect and analyze comprehensive data.

– Identify connections between at risk-patients and drug-diverting pharmacies and doctors.

– Utilize data analysis in conjunction with other intelligence-building techniques to inform charging strategies for prosecuting “pill-mill” doctors.

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Technology Implementation: Preparation and Pitfalls

Today, law enforcement officers not only address crime, but serve as front line responders to homelessness, mental health crises, and substance use disorders. While many police departments have mental health evaluation or Quality of Life teams, they often do not have the tools readily available to connect or reconnect the individuals they encounter to necessary services. 

This webinar spotlights the Long Beach City Prosecutor’s Office’s efforts to tackle this real-time information gap for police officers. City Prosecutor Doug Haubert and Legal Technologist Byron Bolton will discuss the creation of the Government User Integrated Diversion Enhancement System (GUIDES), a phone application that allows officers to immediately access relevant criminal justice and treatment information about an individual from anywhere in the city. This app not only grants law enforcement an extra measure of safety when encountering new individuals—by allowing them to search for any outstanding court orders or histories of mental health—but enables officers to make better-informed decisions about how to approach these individuals and which services to connect them to. Implementing this innovative technology required multiple partnerships and information-sharing protocols. The presenters discuss these crucial steps as well as the hurdles they overcame to launch this innovative application.

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State, Meet Federal: Prosecuting Law Enforcement Involved Sexual Violence

Those who commit crimes involving sexual violence often exploit the disparate power dynamic between victim and offender — whether the relationship is between teacher and student; producer and actor; coach and athlete; or law enforcement officer and arrestee, probationer, or inmate. By wielding weapons of authority, the perpetrator leaves the victim with little choice but to submit to sexual acts and stay quiet in the aftermath, fearing that they will be disbelieved or blamed if they try to report it. This is especially true in the law enforcement context, where victims are usually in the custody of their offender and have a history of criminal activity, which often has an impact on their credibility in the eyes of untrained professionals, juries, and the public.

This presentation addresses the reaches of federal jurisdiction to prosecute sexual violence by those acting under color of law at all levels of government. It discusses how coordination among federal and state authorities can enhance investigations into reports of sexual violence, and if the evidence permits, help determine in which jurisdiction to bring charges. It further focuses on three critical Federal Rules of Evidence that can be used to corroborate a victim’s account and build a strong case — even where there is no physical evidence or eyewitness testimony.

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Proactive Prosecution: Protecting the Record and Overcoming Pre-Trial Issues During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised new issues and exacerbated persisting challenges for prosecutors, who are consistently faced with the task of preparing cases that are victim-centered, sensitive to constitutional guarantees, and resilient to vulnerabilities on appeal. Virtual hearings and other accommodations made to criminal justice processes in light of COVID-19 implicate concerns related to the rights of victims and defendants, as well as the public’s right to open and accessible proceedings. Issues related to pre-trial detention and potential continuances also take on new dimensions during the pandemic. Furthermore, the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, and the complexity it adds to cases, lends itself to the litigation of novel defense motions and challenges. An effective response to this unprecedented time requires proactive consideration of statutes and case law and also engages fundamental principles of pre-trial practice.

This webinar addresses potential legal issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses strategies to prepare for defense challenges and mitigate appellate exposure.

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Just Exits: Achieving Justice: The Prosecutor’s Role

The criminal justice system can serve as both an on-ramp to and an off-ramp from sex trafficking and exploitation. As gatekeepers within the criminal justice system, prosecutors are uniquely positioned to identify sexually exploited women and girls, make fair charging decisions, facilitate criminal record relief, and link survivors with services and support. In these ways, prosecutors can clear the way to a different life path and achieve justice for survivors. 

The presenters bring their lived and professional experience to this presentation, which emphasizes prosecutors’ duties to achieve justice over convictions and to proactively remedy wrongful convictions. Presenters discuss strategies for engaging survivors, avoiding wrongful criminalization, and providing access to just criminal record relief.

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Just Exits: Assessing Culpability: Context Before Conviction

Human traffickers assert force, fraud, and coercion against victims in order to profit from commercial sex or forced labor or services. Offenders use a variety of tactics designed to ensure that victims will do what they are told without resistance, questioning, or disclosure to law enforcement. This physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual control too often allows traffickers to escape accountability.  This presentation is designed to improve responses to trafficking and exploitation while ensuring that victims are not inappropriately charged with crimes they are forced to commit.

 

Collaboration is key to any response to trafficking and exploitation, but imperative where the complexity of victim-offender dynamics is not easily understood or revealed.  This presentation provides law enforcement and prosecutors with strategies to uncover the reality of the victim’s involvement in the trafficking organization or within the exploitation dynamic. Presenters provide a framework for assessing the culpability of individuals who may initially be identified as both victims and defendants. They also provide suggestions to assist prosecutors in making ethical and appropriate immunity and charging decisions as well as designing appropriate dispositions.

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Just Exits: Being Trafficked: What You Need to Know About “the Life”

The criminal justice system can serve as both an on ramp to and an off ramp from sexual exploitation. To minimize on ramps and maximize off ramps, we must first understand the complex nature of sex trafficking and exploitation. Traffickers prey upon vulnerabilities that are often historic and systemic in nature.  They use a variety of tactics designed to ensure that victims will do what they are told without resistance, questioning, or disclosure to law enforcement. This physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual control over victims too often allows traffickers to escape accountability.  This presentation is designed to improve our understanding of what it is like to be sexually exploited and to illustrate how we can improve our response to victims, who often do not see the criminal justice system as a viable off ramp from “the Life”.

The presenters bring their lived and professional experience to this presentation, which will focus on factors that impact entry into “the Life”, the realities of sexual exploitation and trafficking, and the factors that impede or delay exits.  The presentation will provide criminal justice professionals with tools for identifying individuals vulnerable to exploitation, limiting on-ramps, and providing viable off-ramps to achieve justice for survivors.

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Criminal Jury Trials During COVID-19: Prosecution Leadership for a New Era

This webinar addresses the potential impact of pandemic safety measures on criminal jury trials and strategies for protecting the integrity of the proceedings. Presenters discuss strategies for triaging delayed cases; considerations of constitutional rights, including the 6th amendment right to a speedy and public trial, the 6th amendment right to confrontation,  and the 1st amendment freedom of the press; the use of juror questionnaires as a way to minimize potential exposure to COVID-19 during jury selection; and methods for adapting prosecution strategies to virtual platforms.

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Digital Evidence Part II: Now That You’ve Got It and Can Read It, What Can You Do With It?

This two-part webinar series presented by the Denver District Attorney’s Office, in partnership with AEquitas, explores the scope of data available from sources of digital evidence and strategies on how such data can effectively be developed with forensically-sound practices. Presenters discuss theories of admission, rules of evidence, and “real life” examples to demonstrate how to properly authenticate and introduce digital evidence in court proceedings. Part II of the series discusses how legally-obtained data can be analyzed, depending on the type of data in question. Presenters also discuss strategies for effectively presenting data at trial.