Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Pennsylvania Couple Faces Charges For Obtaining Thousands Of Gabapentin Pills Through Fraud
In the days of the pill mills, you could walk out of a pain clinic in Florida with hundreds of oxycodone pills and bring them back to Pennsylvania for resale. Today, if anyone had that many oxycodone pills in the same place at the same time, anywhere except locked up in a pharmacy, it… Read More »
Pennsylvania Man Charged With Fraud For Selling Forgeries Of Renaissance Era Printing Blocks
If a museum discovered that a painting it had been displaying for decades was not, as it claimed to be, the work of a famous artist who lived centuries ago, but rather a more recent forgery, this would be front page news. Lots of people buy artwork, not for museums, but for their own… Read More »
When An Accuser’s Testimony Is The Only Evidence
Forensic evidence has come a long way in the past century. To appreciate this, try watching true crime documentaries about crimes that occurred in the 19th century or earlier. For example, in the 1830s in Scotland, four people were accused of killing people in order to supply bodies for surgeons to dissect in the… Read More »
Pennsylvania Declares Xylazine A Schedule III Controlled Substance
The aftershocks of the opioid epidemic have followed each other so quickly since the pill mills shut down in the middle of the last decade that it is hard to keep track of the newest opioids that are making headlines because of their newfound prevalence in the illegal drug supply. First heroin, which had… Read More »
Extradition And Interstate Rendition
Some criminal cases that stay in the news headlines for weeks or months at a time involve extradition. A defendant might be wanted for a crime in one country but be staying in another to avoid the criminal case, and it might take a while for the two countries to reach an agreement about… Read More »
Wiretap Evidence In Drug Trafficking Cases
Drug trafficking is one of the most serious charges you can face that does not involve violence or sex. Prison sentences for a drug trafficking conviction can last decades. Drug trafficking cases often go through the federal courts, as they often involve complex plans to transport illegal drugs across multiple states, or even multiple… Read More »
Jurisdiction In Pennsylvania Drug Cases
Jurisdiction is a court’s legal authority to issue a decision about a case. It is usually connected to a geographic area. For example, in a personal injury lawsuit stemming from a car accident, the courts of the state where the accident happened have jurisdiction, even if the plaintiff who got injured and the defendant… Read More »
Refusing A Search At A Traffic Stop Does Not Mean That You Are Guilty
Many drug-related arrests arise from traffic stops, but how do police know which cars contain drugs? It isn’t as if cars full of illegally obtained cannabis leave a trail of green leaves, or like cars full of cocaine leave a trail of white powder, like you might expect in a video game. Most of… Read More »
Scopolamine Is Not A Controlled Substance, But It Can Still Cause You Plenty Of Legal Problems
Except for the Schedule I drugs, every controlled substance is a prescription drug, but not every prescription drug is a controlled substance. Plenty of medications are not available over-the-counter, but the law does not consider them dangerous enough to impose the penalties for illicit drug possession if you possess them without a prescription. You… Read More »
Can The Scientific Method Make Or Break Your Criminal Case?
When you are a child, science experiments seem like just another game. The experiments in elementary school where you mix substances together and observe the appearance and physical properties of the results are the most fun parts of science class, certainly more fun than the classroom activities where the only materials are pencil and… Read More »
