Court Opinion

ID: 9376295
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-02 17:00:48.329734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:05.899809
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 19-3062     Document: 010110820297      Date Filed: 03/02/2023   Page: 1
                                                                                 FILED
                                                                     United States Court of Appeals
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                         March 2, 2023
                          _________________________________
                                                                        Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                            Clerk of Court
  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

        Plaintiff - Appellee,
                                                            No. 19-3062
  v.                                              (D.C. No. 6:16-CR-10018-JTM-1)
                                                              (D. Kan.)
  STEVEN R. HENSON,

        Defendant - Appellant.
                       _________________________________

                              ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
                          _________________________________

 Before HOLMES, Chief Judge, SEYMOUR, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.
                    _________________________________

       This case comes before the court on remand from the Supreme Court of the

 United States. Defendant-Appellant Steven R. Henson (“Dr. Henson”) was a

 licensed physician specializing in pain management during the events relevant to this

 case. In 2016, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Dr. Henson with

 thirty-one criminal counts stemming from his pain-management practice. Most of

 these counts involved violations of 21 U.S.C. § 841 for unlawfully distributing or

       *
               After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has
 determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the
 determination of this appeal. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2); 10TH CIR. R. 34.1(G).
 The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and
 judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res
 judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value
 consistent with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1 and 10TH CIR. R. 32.1.
Appellate Case: 19-3062    Document: 010110820297        Date Filed: 03/02/2023    Page: 2

 dispensing a controlled substance, either directly or as predicate violations for other

 charged offenses. A jury convicted Dr. Henson of Counts 1–14, 16, 17, 19, 20, and

 26–31, and we affirmed his conviction in United States v. Henson, 9 F.4th 1258 (10th

 Cir. 2021).

       The Supreme Court thereafter decided Ruan v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 142

 S. Ct. 2370 (2022), which clarified the mens rea requirement of § 841. The Court

 had consolidated Dr. Ruan’s case with that of Dr. Kahn, see Ruan, 142 S. Ct. at 2376,

 who appealed from a decision of our court, see United States v. Khan, 989 F.3d 806

 (10th Cir. 2021). 1 Like Dr. Ruan, Dr. Kahn had been convicted of multiple counts

 involving § 841 related to his pain-management practice. The Court vacated the

 § 841 convictions of both men, based on its interpretation of § 841’s mens rea

 requirement, and remanded for further proceedings. Ruan, 142 S. Ct. at 2382. On

 remand of Dr. Kahn’s case, we decided that the jury instructions the district court had

 issued relating to § 841’s mens rea element were erroneous in light of the principles

 Ruan announced, and we vacated Dr. Kahn’s convictions. See United States v. Kahn,

 58 F.4th 1308, 1311 (10th Cir. 2023). 2

       1
              Our decision in Khan addressed the challenges of two brothers to their
 convictions. The brothers spell their last names differently. One is Dr. Shakeel
 Kahn, and the other is Nabeel Aziz Khan (“Nabeel”). See Khan, 989 F.3d at 811 n.1.
 Nabeel was the first defendant to appear in the caption of our original decision;
 accordingly, we refer to our original decision as “Khan.”
       2
               Because the Supreme Court’s decision in Ruan only vacated Dr. Kahn’s
 conviction, not Nabeel’s, the caption of our decision on remand addressing Dr.
 Kahn’s conviction uses only his name, and we refer to that decision as “Kahn.” See
 supra note 1.
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Appellate Case: 19-3062    Document: 010110820297        Date Filed: 03/02/2023       Page: 3

       Based on Ruan, in a separate decision, the Supreme Court vacated our

 judgment affirming Dr. Henson’s convictions, see Henson v. United States, --- U.S.

 ----, 142 S. Ct. 2902 (2022), and we have since received supplemental briefing from

 the parties addressing the implications of Ruan and Kahn for the vitality of Dr.

 Henson’s convictions. The parties agree that Ruan and Kahn render erroneous

 certain jury instructions that the court issued implicating the mens rea requirement of

 § 841. The parties further agree that these instructional errors were not harmless, as

 to most of Dr. Henson’s convictions. In particular, they agree that the erroneous

 instructions rendered fatally infirm all of Dr. Henson’s convictions except for his

 convictions as to Counts 19 and 20. Consequently, the parties agree that the

 appropriate course of action for us is to order the vacatur of all of Dr. Henson’s

 counts of conviction, except for Counts 19 and 20, and to remand for further

 proceedings. 3

       3
               In his supplemental brief, filed February 21, 2023, Dr. Henson states
 that he would be happy to address any reservations we may have about “reversing
 [his] convictions on Counts 1–18 and 21–31.” Aplt.’s Suppl. Br. at 1. And in his
 opening brief before the Supreme Court’s remand, Dr. Henson states—citing to the
 jury’s verdict form—that he “was convicted following a jury trial of Counts 1–17,
 19–20 and 26–31 of the indictment.” Aplt.’s Opening Br. at 1. However, the district
 court’s criminal judgment in this case is clear: the jury convicted Dr. Henson only of
 Counts 1–14, 16, 17, 19, 20, and 26–31, and the government dismissed Count 15.
 See Aplt.’s App. at 204 (Criminal Judgment, filed Mar. 12, 2019). The jury’s verdict
 form is consistent with the criminal judgment. See United States v. Henson, No. 16-
 CR-10018-01-JTM, ECF No. 373 (D. Kan. Oct. 23, 2018) (finding Dr. Henson guilty
 on the same counts of conviction as are documented in the criminal judgment and
 stating, “There is no Count 15”). As such, we believe Dr. Henson’s statements as to
 the counts of conviction in his opening and supplemental briefs contain immaterial
 typographical errors. And we are constrained to acknowledge that we, too, are not
 immune from such errors. Perhaps following Dr. Henson’s lead in his opening brief,
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Appellate Case: 19-3062   Document: 010110820297        Date Filed: 03/02/2023    Page: 4

       Accordingly, in light of the parties’ agreements in their supplemental briefs,

 we REMAND this case to the district court with instructions to VACATE all of Dr.

 Henson’s counts of conviction except for Counts 19 and 20 (that is, to vacate his

 convictions on Counts 1–14, 16, 17, and 26–31) and for further proceedings

 consistent with this order and judgment.

                                            Entered for the Court

                                            Jerome A. Holmes
                                            Chief Judge

 in our original decision, we stated that Dr. Henson’s counts of conviction included
 Count 15. See Henson, 9 F.4th at 1267 (“The jury, however, was largely
 unpersuaded, and it found Mr. Henson guilty on Counts 1–17, 19–20, and 26–31.”).
 As noted, however, it is clear from the criminal judgment that the government
 dismissed Count 15; on the remand that we order here, Count 15 should not be at
 issue. As the district court should in considering the case on remand, we base our
 decision here on the counts of conviction documented in the criminal judgment.

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