{"id":1566,"date":"2023-12-14T15:15:25","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T20:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/?page_id=1566"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:11:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:11:35","slug":"ruan-v-united-states-an-important-ruling-or-merely-sound-and-fury","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print\/volume-21-issue-2-summer-2023\/ruan-v-united-states-an-important-ruling-or-merely-sound-and-fury\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruan v. United States: An Important Ruling or Merely Sound and Fury?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\">Some opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States resemble the finale to Tchaikovsky\u2019s <span class=\"s2\"><i>1812 Overture<\/i><\/span>. They announce their importance not with a band but with an entire orchestra\u2014and cannons. The Court\u2019s recent decision in <span class=\"s2\"><i>Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization <\/i><\/span>is one of those cases.<span class=\"s3\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\"><i>Dobbs <\/i><\/span>overturned the Court\u2019s 1973 ruling in <span class=\"s2\"><i>Roe v. Wade <\/i><\/span>that the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s Due Process Clause guarantees a woman the right to have an abortion.<span class=\"s3\">\u00a0<\/span>The reverberations from <span class=\"s2\"><i>Dobbs <\/i><\/span>will be felt for a long time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">By contrast, another recent Supreme Court decision\u2014<span class=\"s2\"><i>Ruan v. United States<\/i><\/span>\u2014 will create excitement only among a particular subset of the academy and bar, those who teach or practice criminal law.<span class=\"s3\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\"><i>Ruan <\/i><\/span>involved an interpretation of the principal federal law governing the distribution of legal and illegal drugs, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. The Court held that a licensed physician cannot be convicted of violating the CSA for the unlawful distribution of opioids unless the government proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he or she know-ingly prescribed that medication for an illegitimate purpose\u2014viz., one that is beyond accepted medical practice. That ruling reaffirms the importance of the role of <span class=\"s1\"><i>mens rea <\/i><\/span>in distinguishing \u201cgood guys who made a mistake\u201d from \u201cbad guys who flouted the law.\u201d It does so by requiring the government to prove that a defendant knowingly engaged in wrongdoing. Any such ruling could greatly help defendants.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Continue reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2023\/12\/Ruan-v.-United-States_Larkin.pdf\"><em>Ruan v. United States<\/em>: An Important Ruling or Merely Sound and Fury?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States resemble the finale to Tchaikovsky\u2019s 1812 Overture. They announce their importance not with a band but with an entire orchestra\u2014and cannons. The Court\u2019s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization is one of those cases.\u00a0Dobbs overturned the Court\u2019s 1973 ruling in Roe v. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"parent":1543,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1566","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1863,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1566\/revisions\/1863"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}