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posted by CoolHand on Thursday May 14 2015, @07:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the big-love-big-drug-db dept.

For the most part, attorney Tyler Ayres practices criminal law in Draper, Utah. If you Google him, the first result reads “Utah DUI Attorney.” But recently, Ayres has grown into a de facto voice against the third-party doctrine and Utah’s drug database, a combination allowing authorities to access citizens' prescription drug histories nearly carte blanche. Ayres has represented at least a dozen people with unforeseen issues because of this arrangement. The worse abuse he’s seen involves two of his clients: Candy Holmes and Russell Smithey.

Both Holmes and Smithey have extensive criminal histories. In a recent interview, Smithey conceded that he was an intravenous drug user and has since completed a drug court program. In 2011, his partner, Holmes, was picking up her prescription at a pharmacy near their home in Vernal, Utah. Both Holmes and Smithey regularly took Oxycodone and Methadone.

Ben Murray, an officer with the Vernal City Police Department, watched this Holmes encounter with the pharmacist, according to Smithey and confirmed by deposition documents. Murray says that “she was so intoxicated that she couldn’t even get her money out.”

Smithey tells the story differently. He says Murray saw Holmes take some of the medication and get into her car to drive home. It would have taken longer than the drive home for the pills to set in, he explains. Either way, the undisputed facts are that Murray contacted dispatch and Holmes was arrested in her driveway after failing a sobriety test.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/ill-never-ask-for-another-pain-pill-again-℞-database-damage-in-utah/

[Related]: The big drug database in the sky: One firefighter’s year-long legal nightmare

 
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  • (Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:11PM

    by rts008 (3001) on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:11PM (#182966)

    1. No, it is one sided. Murray and Smithey agree that Murray watched Holmes refill the prescription only. Murray and Smithey disagree on her being impaired. It is right there in the summary, you don't even have to read the article.

    3. Her condition according to Murray, disputed by Smithey.

    Then, if you bothered to read the article, you would know that Murray was arrested for stealing oxycodone from Holmes on a regular basis to support his own habit, and pleaded 'no contest' when charged with using the database to find out when Holmes refilled the oxycodone, and would then go to there house to 'count them to make sure she was not abusing them, for her own good' as a tactic to get his hands on them to steal some for himself.

    So, it is highly likely some sort of dodgy evidence construction was going on.

    Ayres may not of had the best test case, but it does not matter(in this case) now, as it has been settled out of court- taken from Ayres' hands.

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