Opinion ID: 799257
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rejection of State Pharmacy and First Amendment Instructions

Text: Finally, Mr. Bader argues that the district court erred with respect to the jury instructions that it did not givei.e., in refusing to inform the jury of Colorado's pharmacy-dispensing laws, see Aplt. Opening Br. at 52-54, and in failing to instruct the jury that Mr. Bader had a Supreme Court-recognized right to advertise under the First Amendment, id. at 55. We review the district court's refusal to issue these instructions for an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Crockett, 435 F.3d 1305, 1314 (10th Cir.2006). However, in determining whether the district court exercised its discretion properly, we review the jury instructions de novo to determine whether, as a whole, they accurately state the governing law and provide the jury with an accurate understanding of the relevant legal standards and factual issues in the case. Id. Applying this standard to the present case, it is patent that the district court appropriately exercised its discretion when it rejected Mr. Bader's proposed instructions. Mr. Bader first contends that the district court erred in refusing to issue several relevant state pharmacy instructions regarding: (1) Colorado requirements that pharmacies maintain adequate drug inventories and provide adequate services, Aplt. Opening Br. at 52; (2) [s]tate laws governing ordering, dispensing[,] and requirements for valid prescriptions, id. at 53; (3) [s]tate laws clarifying that pharmacists who prepare, compound, package, repackage, or dispense drug[s] are not drug wholesalers or manufacturers, id.; and (4) a Colorado law providing that pharmacists may rely on a physician's professional judgment in ordering a drug for a patient, id. at 54. However, Mr. Bader fails to identify to which of the forty-three charged counts these state laws pertain, let alone explain how they are relevant to the charges upon which he was convicted. Indeed, it is clear from the record that the district court was more than generous in including some language [from the proffered instructions] ... where it [was] relevant to [the] explanation of a particular element of a particular count, despite its determination that Colorado's pharmacy laws generally had no bearing upon Mr. Bader's charges. See Aplee. App., Vol. III, Tr. at 634. As Mr. Bader offers no support for his bald allegation that this determination was somehow erroneous, we are constrained to conclude that his first argument is meritless. Mr. Bader's undeveloped First Amendment claim, which he seeks to assert throughout his opening brief, is even less persuasive. As we discuss infra, the government introduced evidence of College Pharmacy advertisements in order to prove that Mr. Bader purposefully marketed HGH and testosterone cypionate for impermissible purposes. At no point, however, did the government contest, as a general matter, College Pharmacy's right to advertise its products. In other words, Mr. Bader's First Amendment right to advertise was in no way implicated, let alone compromised, by the charges against him. Consequently, an instruction regarding Mr. Bader's First Amendment rights could not possibly have promoted an accurate understanding of the relevant legal standards and factual issues in the case. See Crockett, 435 F.3d at 1314. We therefore reject Mr. Bader's unsubstantiated assertion that the district court somehow abused its discretion in refusing to issue an (irrelevant) instruction pertaining to his First Amendment right to advertise.