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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA woman who still had Oxycodone pills after her prescription had expired should not have been convicted for possession of a narcotic drug, the Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled.
In a Friday reversal, the appellate court overturned an Elkhart Superior Court decision that found Latieka Page guilty of Level 6 felony possession of a narcotic drug after an Indiana State Police trooper found Oxycodone in her vehicle during a July 2019 traffic stop.
Page, who said she was driving to visit her mother, smelled of raw marijuana, according to an officer who approached her vehicle. A search found a bag containing THC cartridges, edibles and a glass jar that contained several grams of marijuana. The bag also had an unlabeled pill bottle with dozens of Oxycodone pills.
Page held fast to her argument that the pills were from a valid prescription for chronic back pain and that she had a larger bottle of the Oxycodone pills at home. She said she used the unmarked pill bottle when she was traveling and took less than prescribed because she “didn’t want to get addicted to it.”
Affirming that some of her pills were from a prescription he wrote, Dr. Ajit Pai, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist with Pain Management Group in Mishawaka, testified that in December 2017 he had written three prescriptions for Page, each for 120 pills for 30 days with zero refills. Page subsequently obtained prescriptions for lesser amounts of the pain pills from three other providers throughout 2018.
Page explained to the judge that, to address her pain, she tried to rely more on marijuana and less on Oxycodone, as marijuana had fewer side effects, resulting in her accumulating “extra pills.” She asked that the court find her not guilty of possession of a narcotic drug but admitted to the misdemeanor marijuana possession.
But the trial court found her guilty of both offenses, concluding that the prescriptions weren’t valid at the time of her traffic stop. It sentenced her to one year in the Elkhart County Jail, with all the time suspended to probation, as well as a concurrent term of 180 days suspended to probation for the misdemeanor conviction.
“We cannot agree with the trial court’s determination that a validly issued prescription becomes invalid for purposes of I.C. § 35-48-4-6 upon a person’s failure to take the medicine as prescribed. There is nothing in the statute from which to infer that a prescription is no longer valid once the prescribed period of use elapses,” Judge Robert Altice wrote for the appellate court.
“The effect of the trial court’s determination is that every person who retains, that is, possesses, a prescription of a controlled substance for any time after the proscribed number of days commits a possession offense. We do not believe the legislature intended such a harsh result,” Altice continued.
“This court has suggested that the ‘valid prescription’ requirement is intended to assure the prescription was not obtained by fraud, misrepresentation, or deceit,” he wrote, citing Schuller v. State, 625 N.E.2d 1243 (Ind. Ct. App. 1993). “There is no evidence of such here. Nor is there any evidence for the proposition that Page obtained the prescriptions from anyone other than a practitioner in the scope of the practitioner’s professional practice.”
As such, the COA found a reversal was warranted for Page on her felony possession conviction, ruling that she proved by a preponderance of the evidence that she had obtained the Oxycodone via one or more prior, validly issued prescriptions.
The case is Latieka Q. Page v. State of Indiana, 21A-CR-90.
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