Too often, we hear or read about people being arrested or businesses shut down, but not often do we get the final outcome. An arrest is not a conviction. Fortunately, our jury system works more often then it doesn't. Read on:

This is from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Jury acquits doctor in pain-control test case
- Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer
Thursday, May 20, 2004

A Shasta County physician who once faced multiple counts of murder and
other felonies as part of an alleged drug-dealing conspiracy was found not
guilty late Tuesday of the remaining charges against him, ending a high-
profile case seen as a test of the ability of doctors to treat patients
with chronic pain.

Dr. Frank B. Fisher, 50, was acquitted of charges that he had defrauded
the state Medi-Cal system -- the only criminal charges that hadn't already
been dropped -- by a Shasta County Superior Court jury after a two-week
trial in Redding.

"I feel a profound sense of relief," Fisher said.

The Fisher case is one of the first and most ambitious prosecutions in the
country involving doctors accused of over-prescribing pain medications.
Pain-control advocates view such prosecutions as a misguided war on
legitimate drug use; authorities insist they have a problem only with
physicians who knowingly dispense potent narcotics to people who don't
really need them.

Authorities shut down Fisher's Westwood Walk-In Clinic in February 1999
and took him and the pharmacists, Stephen and Madeline Miller, to jail in
handcuffs.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said at the time that Fisher and the
Millers had joined in "a highly sophisticated drug-dealing operation" that
caused the overdose deaths of at least three people, got hundreds of
others hooked on narcotics and bilked Medi-Cal out of about $2 million.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general's office declined to comment
Wednesday.

But Fisher, an East Bay native who earned his medical degree at Harvard
University in 1981, never seemed to fit the mold of mass murderer and dope
peddler.

Fisher has maintained throughout his legal ordeal that he was singled out
by prosecutors because he was one of the few doctors brave enough to
prescribe high doses of narcotics, including the controversial
prescription painkiller OxyContin, to low-income pain sufferers despite
the scrutiny of drug- enforcement authorities.

Many of his patients in the Redding community have had trouble finding
another physician willing to write those prescriptions. Fisher says this
has had devastating consequences.

"The part of this story that's always missing is the suffering of the
patients I was treating," he said during a telephone interview Wednesday.
"For my patients, my arrest was an unmitigated disaster. Many of them
survived, but many of them not well. A lot of them look like they've aged
20 years."

Fisher spent five months in jail. His bank account was seized, and he
wound up moving back in with his parents in El Cerrito to save rent.

Fisher says he is broke now but hopes to regain his property along with
his reputation and medical practice. However, he still faces a complaint
before the state Medical Board tied to the criminal accusations, and for
now he is unable to practice medicine.

He also faces civil suits brought by relatives of patients who died as a
result of his allegedly negligent prescribing practices.

Besides the three deaths with which he was initially charged, Fisher was
charged with two other murder counts after his arrest and implicated in
four additional deaths. But prosecutors came up with little evidence to
support the most serious charges.

In one case, for instance, Fisher was accused of causing the overdose
death of a woman who actually had died of injuries sustained while riding
in a vehicle that crashed. Another person succumbed to drugs apparently
purchased from street sources after Fisher refused to write him a
prescription.

A Shasta County judge dismissed two of the murder counts and downgraded
three others to involuntary manslaughter in July 1999.

Charges against the Millers were dropped last year, when prosecutors also
quietly withdrew their most serious remaining allegations against Fisher.
New felony charges were brought against Fisher, however, alleging that he
had filed fraudulent claims for Medi-Cal reimbursement.

Superior Court Judge Bradley Boeckman, who presided over the case in
Redding, reduced the remaining felonies to misdemeanors. Fisher claims the
alleged overbilling amounted to about $150.

Now, advocates of effective treatment for chronic pain are portraying
Fisher as a hero. He is one of about 100 doctors around the country said
to be victims of overzealous drug enforcement that has made it more
difficult for pain sufferers to obtain the medicine they need.

An organization of pain sufferers and advocates called the Pain Relief
Network issued a news release Wednesday condemning Lockyer for what the
group characterized as a historic blunder.

Siobhan Reynolds, executive director, said the group was pushing for a
state and congressional review of the Fisher case along with several other
prosecutions involving pain treatment. Reynolds said the organization also
intended to sue on behalf of patients denied adequate pain relief.

People can suffer from chronic pain for a variety of reasons, whether it's
a failed back surgery, a car accident or some unknown cause. Frequently,
patients unable to get adequate treatment find themselves in a downward
spiral, unable to perform routine tasks, losing their jobs and ending
their marriages.

E-mail Carl T. Hall at