United States v. Saad Sakkal ( 2023 )

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 23a0242n.06
No. 20-3880
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED
May 31, 2023
) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
)
Plaintiff-Appellee, )
) ON REMAND FROM THE
v. ) SUPREME COURT OF THE
) UNITED STATES
SAAD SAKKAL, M.D., )
Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION
)
Before: ROGERS, COLE, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.
ROGERS, Circuit Judge.
With the express concurrence of the Government, the Supreme Court has vacated and
remanded our affirmance of defendant Sakkal’s convictions for illegal distribution of controlled
substances in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). In the previous appeal we rejected Sakkal’s
arguments that he was improperly denied bail, that the evidence against him was not sufficient,
and that his trial counsel was ineffective in two ways that had been addressed by the district court
following a hearing. We declined to address other ineffective-assistance issues on direct appeal
and affirmed, leaving the unaddressed ineffective-assistance issues to possible consideration on
collateral review under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Subsequently, the Supreme Court held in Ruan v. United
States, 142 S. Ct. 2370 (2022), that “once a defendant meets the burden of producing evidence that
his or her conduct was ‘authorized’” under § 841(a), “the Government must prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly or intentionally acted in an unauthorized manner.”
No. 20-3880, United States v. Sakkal
Id. at 2376. Sakkal timely petitioned for certiorari, contending that in light of Ruan the district
court erred in its jury instructions on the mens rea requirement under § 841(a). The United States
advised the Court to grant certiorari, vacate the decision below, and remand the case for further
consideration (GVR) in light of Ruan. The Supreme Court did just that. The fact that the United
States endorsed the GVR did not waive its argument that Sakkal failed to preserve the Ruan issue
in the district court, so we apply plain error review. Because the instructions below survive
deferential plain-error review, we adhere to our prior judgment of affirmance. This, however, does
not preclude Sakkal from raising the Ruan issue as part of his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel
claims in a subsequent collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.
Saad Sakkal practiced medicine at Lindenwald Medical Association from February 2015
to December 2016. Sakkal was licensed to practice medicine in Ohio and also had a Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) registration number to dispense Schedule II through Schedule
V controlled substances. The DEA began investigating Sakkal’s prescription practices after a
referral from the Ohio Medical Board, which had received several phone calls from pharmacists
about Sakkal’s issuance of problematic prescriptions.
In June 2018, a grand jury returned a thirty-nine-count indictment against Sakkal: thirty
counts of illegal distribution of a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1); two
counts of distribution of a controlled substance that resulted in death in violation of
21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C); and seven counts of using the registration number of another to dispense
a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(a)(2).
At trial, the Government introduced testimony that Sakkal utilized several dangerous
prescription methods. The Government’s expert, Dr. Timothy King, testified that Sakkal was
prescribing multiple substances that served the same purpose and that this “therapeutic
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duplication” risked “significant adverse effects, including respiratory sedation and death.”
Sakkal also prescribed several dangerous combinations of controlled substances, including:
(1) amphetamines and opioids; (2) methadone with a benzodiazepine and an amphetamine; and
(3) opioids with a benzodiazepine and a muscle relaxant, Soma. Finally, Sakkal sometimes
prescribed high amounts of controlled substances.
The Government also presented testimony that Sakkal ignored warning signs about the
danger of his prescription practices. Employees at Lindenwald administered drug screens to
determine if patients were taking their controlled substances as prescribed and to evaluate whether
the patient was also taking illegal controlled substances. These drug screens operate as an
objective method to ensure that controlled-substance prescriptions do not contribute to a risk of
overdose or maintenance of an addiction. Sakkal’s records indicated that his patients’ drug screens
sometimes revealed that patients were taking unprescribed controlled substances or were not
taking prescribed controlled substances. Sakkal’s records never showed that he discharged or
disciplined a patient because of the concerning drug screens.
Sakkal also failed to use the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System (OARRS) to monitor
his patients’ prescriptions for controlled substances. This system is designed to log all of a
patient’s controlled-substance prescriptions that are filled or dispensed in Ohio. This allows a
physician to ensure that patients have not already received a prescription for their ailments and to
confirm that patients have not been doctor shopping to obtain controlled substances. Even when
other Lindenwald employees provided Sakkal with OARRS reports for his patients, he did not
review the reports.
Several pharmacies became aware of Sakkal’s prescription practices and began calling
Lindenwald to discuss concerns about them. Sakkal met with at least three pharmacies to discuss
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these concerns, but he did not change his prescribing practices. Some pharmacies decided to stop
filling Sakkal’s prescriptions for controlled substances. In addition to charging Sakkal with illegal
distribution of controlled substances, the indictment charged Sakkal with two counts of illegally
distributing controlled substances that resulted in a patient’s death.
At trial Sakkal requested inclusion of jury instructions regarding the “except as authorized”
provision of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). As relevant here, Sakkal proposed (instruction no. 3) instructing
the jury that the Government must prove he “acted with intent to distribute the drugs and with
intent to distribute them outside the course of professional practice,” and that, to find him guilty,
“the jury must make a finding of intent, not merely with respect to distribution, but also with
respect to [Sakkal’s] intent to act as a pusher rather than a medical professional.” He further
requested the court include an instruction stating that a physician does not violate § 841 if he
prescribed the substances in “good faith” in “accordance with what the physician should
reasonably believe to be a proper medical practice.” Sakkal also requested the court instruct the
jury as to the meaning of “outside the bounds of professional medical practice.” According to
Sakkal’s proposed instruction no. 2, prescribing outside the bounds of professional medical
practice means “prescrib[ing] drugs as being used not for treatment of a patient, but for the purpose
of assisting another in the maintenance of a drug habit or of dispensing controlled substances for
other than a legitimate medical purpose; for example, the personal profit of the physician.” The
district court declined to use Sakkal’s requested instruction on subjective intent (instruction no. 3)
but did use his requested instruction on deliberate ignorance and good faith (instruction no. 7).
Sakkal made no objection, at either the pre-trial conference or the follow-up conference held after
the defense had rested, to the district court’s decisions to use instruction no. 7 and not use
instruction no. 3. His only objection to the mens rea section of the jury instructions was to delete
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No. 20-3880, United States v. Sakkal
“or was beyond the bounds of medical practice” after “in the usual course of his professional
practice,” which the district court did. Thus, with respect to mens rea, the district court instructed
as follows:
In order to find the defendant guilty of a violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1), the
government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the following elements:
(1) The defendant distributed or dispensed a controlled
substance as alleged in these counts of the Indictment[;]
(2) The defendant acted knowingly and intentionally in
distributing or dispensing that controlled substance; and
(3) The defendant’s act was not for a legitimate medical
purpose in the usual course of his professional practice.
The instructions also included the following explanation:
The term “knowingly” means that the act was done voluntarily and intentionally
and not because of a mistake or accident. Although knowledge of the defendant
cannot be established merely by demonstrating that he was careless, knowledge
may be inferred if the defendant deliberately blinded himself to the existence of a
fact.
No one can avoid responsibility for a crime by deliberately ignoring the obvious.
If you are convinced that the defendant deliberately ignored a high probability that
the controlled substances alleged in these counts were distributed or dispensed
outside the course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose,
then you may find that the defendant knew that this was the case.
But you must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was aware
of a high probability that the controlled substances were distributed or dispensed
outside the course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose,
and that the defendant deliberately closed his eyes to what was obvious.
Carelessness or negligence or foolishness on his part are not the same as knowledge
and are not enough to find him guilty on any of these counts.
The jury convicted Sakkal, among other things, of thirty counts of illegally distributing a
controlled substance. On Sakkal’s motion for a new trial, the district court held an evidential
hearing, with new counsel for Sakkal, on whether Sakkal received ineffective assistance of trial
counsel in two respects not relevant to this appeal. The district court proceeded to rule against
Sakkal on these two ineffective-assistance claims.
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No. 20-3880, United States v. Sakkal
On Sakkal’s direct appeal, we rejected his first argument—that he was improperly denied
reasonable bail—and his second argument—that the evidence presented during trial was
insufficient to establish that he caused the death of one of his patients. United States v. Sakkal,
No. 22-3880, 2022 WL 557520, at *3–4 (6th Cir. Feb. 24, 2022). We reviewed and rejected the
two ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims that the district court had ruled upon following the
hearing. We declined to address the remaining ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims based on
our consistent practice not to entertain ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims on direct appeal
where there has not been an opportunity to develop an adequate record to evaluate the merits of
the allegations. See United States v. Williams, 612 F.3d 500, 508 (6th Cir. 2010). “Such claims
‘are more properly available in a post-conviction proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, after the
parties have had the opportunity to develop an adequate record on the issue from which the
reviewing court is capable of arriving at an informed decision.’” Id. (quoting United States v.
Rahal, 191 F.3d 642, 645 (6th Cir. 1999)). Among the listed claims we declined to review was
Sakkal’s claim that his “counsel did not object to the jury instructions about the necessary intent
required to convict” him. Sakkal, 2022 WL 557520, at *4 n.2.
Before Sakkal’s time to petition for certiorari ran out, the Supreme Court decided Ruan v.
United States, 142 S. Ct. 2370 (2022). The Ruan Court held that the “knowingly or intentionally”
mens rea requirement applies not only to the “manufacture, distribute, or dispense” requirement
of § 841(a), but also to the requirement that defendant’s acts have not been “authorized.” Id. at
2375. In the Supreme Court’s words, “the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt
that the defendant knew that he or she was acting in an unauthorized manner, or intended to do
so.” Id. Sakkal sought certiorari, arguing that the Supreme Court should GVR our judgment on
the ground that his jury had been given a scienter instruction that did not comply with the Ruan
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No. 20-3880, United States v. Sakkal
holding. In a three-sentence memorandum in response, the Government agreed that GVR was “the
appropriate course.” The Supreme Court entered a GVR order in this and several other cases,
some from this circuit and some from the Tenth and Eleventh Circuits. On remand, at our
invitation, the parties have briefed how we should proceed.
The remaining substantive issue now before us is whether the jury instructions with respect
to mens rea were erroneous under the Ruan holding. There are also procedural issues regarding
whether Sakkal forfeited that issue in the district court, whether Sakkal forfeited the issue in our
court, and whether the Government forfeited reliance on these forfeitures by acquiescing in the
GVR order. The bottom line is that, in light of this Court’s recent post-Ruan holding in United
States v. Anderson, No. 21-3073, __ F.4th __, 2023 WL 2966356 (6th Cir. April 17, 2023), the
instructions in this case were not plainly erroneous, and affirmance is still required.
We apply plain error review to the question of whether the district court’s scienter
instruction complied with the holding of Ruan, because Sakkal did not preserve that jury
instruction issue below, as required by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 30(d). Although
Sakkal’s counsel did propose to the district court an instruction that he contends anticipated the
requirements of Ruan, that is not sufficient because he never objected to the district court’s
decision declining to give the instruction, despite clear opportunities to do so. In United States v.
Semrau, 693 F.3d 510, 527 (6th Cir. 2012), we squarely held that merely proposing an instruction
is not sufficient to preserve such an issue. Of course, when there is such a forfeiture, a defendant
may nonetheless argue on direct appeal that there is plain error under Rules of Criminal Procedure
30(d) and 52(d). See Greer v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090, 2096 (2021). This is in line with
our recent unpublished opinion in United States v. Fabode, No. 21-1491, 2022 WL 16825408 (6th
Cir. Nov. 8, 2022), where we accordingly reviewed a claim of instructional error based on Ruan
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for plain error. In that case, the defendant, who was convicted before Ruan came down, had not
argued for a Ruan-compliant instruction either in the form of proposed jury instructions or in
objecting to the instructions given in the district court. Id. at *6–7.
Indeed, Sakkal’s supplemental reply brief (commendably) concedes that—apart from an
argument based on the Government’s acquiescence in the GVR—“the government has the better
of the preservation issue in the district court,” such that plain error review is proper. The
Government’s acquiescence in the GVR, however, makes no difference. In Lawrence v. Chater,
516 U.S. 163, 171 (1996), the Court referred to its “well established practice of GVR’ing based
on confessions of error that do not purport to concede the whole case.” Chater cited Moore v.
United States, 429 U.S. 20 (1976), in which the Court GVR’d “based on the Solicitor General’s
confession of error, notwithstanding the Solicitor General’s unresolved claim that the error was
harmless[.]” Id. Granting, vacating, and remanding is discretionary on the part of the Supreme
Court, and the Solicitor General should be able to advise the Court to GVR in such a way as to
conserve the Supreme Court’s scarce resources. When there are multiple certiorari petitions that
have raised the same issue, and the Supreme Court has ruled on that issue, it makes sense that the
remaining cases be sent back to the lower courts to apply the new law without deciding in each of
those cases whether there is an alternative basis for deciding whether to grant certiorari. No one
expects the Court to take all these cases just to make sure that there is not some independently
dispositive issue lurking in any of them. It simply does not make sense to force the Government
to find and argue such issues in the Supreme Court, on pain of waiving legitimate bases for ruling
in its favor, when the obviously advisable course in many cases is just to send the case back, as
the Court did in this case. In other words, the Court should be able to rule on one issue, and have
that ruling considered where relevant in the lower courts, without having to address alternative
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arguments in cases not yet before it. Moreover, the Government should be able to recommend
such a course where appropriate, without waiving such alternative arguments.
The cases cited by Sakkal do not support his Government waiver argument. The fact that
the Government may use a petitioner’s failure to raise an issue as one reason to oppose certiorari
does not require the conclusion that it must, on pain of forfeiting the issue in the court below.
Moreover, that the Government may use the petitioner’s failure to raise an issue as one reason for
opposing certiorari does not say anything about the meaning of a summary memorandum
acquiescing in certiorari. Thus the Government briefs in Salgado v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 2640
(2020) (No. 19-6590), 2020 WL 1372757, and Stevens v. Dep’t of Treasury, 500 U.S. 1 (1991),
provide Sakkal no support on the GVR-acquiescence waiver issue. Of course, there are cases
referring to the possibility that the Government may waive a waiver issue, but the cases cited by
Sakkal do not deal with a GVR acquiescence, and most do not even deal with waiver at the
certiorari level at all. See Greer, 938 F.3d at 770; United States v. Gibbs, 626 F.3d 344, 351 (6th
Cir. 2010) (discussing waiver where we remanded the case to the district court). In Lee v. Kemna,
534 U.S. 362, 376 n.8 (2002), there is indeed a reference to a Government procedural default in
its opposition to the petition for a writ of certiorari, but the case also involved a Government failure
to raise the waiver issue in the court below, i.e. not solely at the certiorari level, and the case did
not involve a Government acquiescence in a GVR.
The Government’s agreement to a GVR thus did not forfeit the argument that Sakkal
procedurally defaulted his objections to the district court’s intent instructions. Plain error review
is therefore appropriate, unless Sakkal’s failure to challenge the intent instructions in his initial
briefing to us in turn forfeited even plain error review.
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No. 20-3880, United States v. Sakkal
However, we need not resolve the latter argument here. For practical purposes, GVR’ing
our decision—based on a Supreme Court case that came down after appellate judgment but before
a certiorari petition was due—is little different from having the court of appeals examine the
applicability of Ruan before judgment in our court but after briefing. In the latter case, we do not
doubt that we could order supplemental briefing on the relevance of the new precedent, based for
instance on Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(j), and proceed to address the relevance of the new
precedent with no harm to the structural interest of respect for the district court, and no harm to a
party’s ability to fully address the issue. The possibility that the district court will be reversed
without having had the chance to bring its actions into compliance with the law is just as small as
under standard plain error review of its decisions. Also, by permitting supplemental briefing, the
parties can address the applicability of the new precedent, just as they could where the new
precedent came down during the late stages of appellate review. The latter situation occurred in
Fabode, supra, and we proceeded to examine whether Ruan applied notwithstanding the failure of
the defendant to argue regarding an intent instruction in his initial appellate briefing. Fabode,
2022 WL 16825408, at *7.
However, we need not resolve this argument because, as in Fabode, it makes no difference
as Sakkal’s intent instruction claim fails on plain error review. That conclusion is compelled by
our post-Ruan decision in United States v. Anderson, No. 21-3073, __ F.4th __, 2023 WL 2966356(6th Cir. April 17, 2023), upholding a conviction under § 841(a) where the intent instruction was
almost identical to the one in Sakkal’s case.
Sakkal argues that the following instruction in the district court “told the jury that the
‘knowingly or intentionally’ element applied only to the act of distributing or dispensing (precisely
the sort of instruction that the Supreme Court rejected in Ruan)”:
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No. 20-3880, United States v. Sakkal
In order to find the defendant guilty of a violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1),
the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the following
elements:
(1) The defendant distributed or dispensed a controlled substance as alleged in these
counts of the Indictment;
(2) The defendant acted knowingly and intentionally in distributing or dispensing
that controlled substance; and
(3) The defendant’s act was not for a legitimate medical purpose in the usual
course of his professional practice.
Sakkal’s supplemental reply brief characterizes this instruction as telling “the jury, point blank,
that the scienter element of Section 841(a)(1) applies only to the act of ‘dispensing’ controlled
substances, and not to the separate ‘except as authorized’ element.” This language clearly says
that “knowingly and intentionally” applies to “dispensing,” and does not say that in so many words
with respect to the negative “not for a legitimate medical purpose in the usual course of his
professional practice.”
Our recent holding in Anderson forecloses this negative implication argument, however.
Anderson was another § 841(a) case in which the conviction preceded the Ruan decision. The
instruction in that case was formulated a little differently but maintained the same dichotomy: the
knowing-and-intentional scienter is specifically tied to the action of dispensing, but not specifically
tied to the “not for a legitimate medical purpose in the usual course of his professional practice”
requirement:
First, the defendant knowingly or intentionally dispensed or distributed a Schedule
II controlled substance, including fentanyl, Adderall, oxycodone and hydrocodone;
and,
Second, that the defendant, Dr. Anderson, prescribed the drug without a legitimate
medical purpose and outside the course of professional practice.
Anderson, 2023 WL 2966356, at *7. In evaluating whether this language reflected a violation of
Ruan, our court reasoned as follows,
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No. 20-3880, United States v. Sakkal
The [district] court then gave “more detailed instructions on some of these terms.”
In describing terms related to the second element, it explained that:
Although knowledge of the defendant cannot be established merely
by demonstrating he was careless, knowledge may be inferred if the
defendant deliberately blinded himself to the existence of a fact. No
one can avoid responsibility for a crime by deliberately ignoring the
obvious. If you are convinced that the defendant deliberately
ignored a high probability that the controlled substance was
distributed or dispensed without a legitimate medical purpose in the
usual course of professional practice, then you may find that the
defendant knew this was the case.
The instruction given to the jury specifically covers the holding of Ruan, by
referring continuously to the “knowledge of the defendant,” his “deliberate
ignorance,” and if he “knew” that the prescriptions were dispensed illegitimately.
Such terms go beyond an objective view of the “usual course of professional
practice” and instead direct the jury’s attention to Anderson’s subjective mindset in
issuing the prescriptions.
The [district] court goes on to further emphasize that knowledge, and no
lesser level of culpability, is required to find Anderson guilty on this element:
But you must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the
defendant was aware of a high probability that the controlled
substances were distributed or dispensed other than for a legitimate
medical purpose while acting in the usual course of professional
practice, and that the defendant deliberately closed his eyes to what
was obvious. Carelessness, or negligence, or foolishness on his part
are not the same as knowledge and are not enough to find him guilty
on this count.
The instructions given by the court, though not expressed in the way Anderson
requested, substantially cover the concept of knowledge through the description of
deliberate ignorance and the juxtaposition of “knowledge” with “[c]arelessness,
negligence, or foolishness.” Cf. United States v. Damra, 621 F.3d 474, 502 (6th
Cir. 2010) (finding that, in the tax evasion context, a good faith instruction was
substantially covered by the court’s instruction that the defendant had to have acted
voluntarily and deliberately to violate known law to be found guilty). Because the
jury instructions given in Anderson’s case appear to comport to Ruan and to
substantially cover the requested instruction, we reject Anderson’s argument that
the district court abused its discretion in failing to give a good faith instruction.
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Id. at *7–8 (citations omitted). This reasoning is directly applicable to Sakkal’s case because the
same deliberate ignorance instruction relied upon in Anderson to eliminate any negative inference
was given word-for-word in Sakkal’s trial. See supra, p. 5–6.
Given Anderson’s holding that this language kept the instructions in that case from
amounting to a violation of Ruan, the conclusion is compelled that the same language in Sakkal’s
case kept the instructions from amounting to plain error. A reversal for plain error requires four
elements:
First, there must be an error. Second, the error must be plain. Third, the error must
affect “substantial rights,” which generally means that there must be “a reasonable
probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been
different.” If those three requirements are met, an appellate court may grant relief
if it concludes that the error had a serious effect on “the fairness, integrity or public
reputation of judicial proceedings.”
Greer, 141 S. Ct. at 2096–97 (citations omitted). It is sufficient for the purposes of this case to
conclude that the second requirement is not met, that any error be plain. For these purposes,
“[p]lain is synonymous with ‘clear’ or, equivalently, ‘obvious.’” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S.
725, 734 (1993). The Anderson court explained that “more detailed instructions” in that case
ensured that the instructions comported with Ruan’s holding, and the same is true in Sakkal’s case
by virtue of the identical “more detailed instructions.” See Anderson, 2023 WL 2966356, at *7–
8. It follows that the instruction in Sakkal’s case cannot be “plain error” in light of our published
precedent in Anderson.
This conclusion is sufficient to affirm Sakkal’s conviction on direct appeal. We do not
address the other elements of the plain error test, or any arguments regarding ineffectiveness of
Sakkal’s counsel.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
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