Bradford, J.
In September of 2014, Appellant-Plaintiff the State of Indiana charged Appellee-Defendant Yvonne Morgan with Class B felony conspiracy to commit dealing in a schedule III controlled substance and Class C felony corrupt business influence. Approximately one year later, … the State filed an amended information … Morgan filed a renewed motion to dismiss all of the charges against her, which motion the trial court granted. The State now appeals, arguing that the trial court abused its discretion in granting Morgan’s motion to dismiss. …
According to the probable cause affidavit filed in this case, in 2008 the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) began investigating Dr. Larry Ley, who oversaw the treatment of addiction at several clinics in Indiana operating as part of Drug & Opiate Recovery Network, Inc. (“DORN”) of Living Life Clean, LLC (“LLC”). The clinic in Wayne County at which Morgan worked as a registered nurse (“the Clinic”) had been affiliated with DORN since 2007. …
Between November of 2013 and April of 2014, DEA investigators conducted several periods of surveillance on the Clinic and observed between sixty and one hundred patients enter the Clinic during each open period. On November 27, 2013, investigators observed Morgan arrive at the Clinic in a vehicle registered to DORN. No other medical personnel were observed at the Clinic, approximately eighty-nine patients entered, and records indicate that at least seventy-one Suboxone prescriptions were issued by Dr. Vierk. ….
… The trial court held a hearing on Morgan’s motion to dismiss on November 17, 2015, and granted Morgan’s motion on March 1, 2016, dismissing all six charges. The trial court essentially concluded that, because Morgan was not a licensed physician, there was no way that the State could prove the mens rea necessary for conviction, i.e., that she knew that hers and Dr. Vierk’s actions were outside the usual course of professional medical practice.
The Indiana Legend Drug Act provides, in part, that “a prescription or drug order for a legend drug is not valid unless the prescription or drug order is issued for a legitimate medical purpose by a practitioner acting in the usual course of the practitioner’s business” and that “[a] practitioner may not knowingly issue an invalid prescription or drug order for a legend drug.” Ind. Code § 16-42-19-20. … Here, Morgan’s charges are all based on allegations that she participated with Dr. Vierk in the ongoing delivery of invalid prescriptions for Suboxone. ….
As mentioned, the basis of the trial court’s dismissal of all of the charges against Morgan was its conclusion that it was impossible for Morgan to have known, as a non-physician, whether her actions and those of Dr. Vierk were outside the usual course of professional medical practice. … ….
… As a practical matter, pursuant to the trial court’s ruling, no person, physician or otherwise, could ever be convicted in Indiana of a crime involving a question of whether certain conduct fell outside the usual course of professional medical practice. We conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in dismissing Morgan’s charges on the basis that she is not a physician.
Morgan also contends that the criminal statutes in question are void for vagueness as applied to her. Although this particular argument was not reached by the trial court, we address it in the interest of finality and judicial economy. …
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Morgan’s argument is, as with her previous one, based on her status as a non-physician, specifically that she cannot possibly know what conduct is proscribed because she cannot know whether conduct falls outside the usual course of professional medical practice, a fact the State is required to establish to prove each of the six charges against Morgan. For the reasons explained above, we have rejected this premise. …
That said, we have little trouble concluding that the statutes in question are not void for vagueness as applied to Morgan. … Reading the statutes at issue in this case, a person of ordinary intelligence would easily understand that agreeing with or assisting a physician to distribute prescriptions for controlled substances—prescriptions that person knows to be invalid—is proscribed conduct. …
We conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in dismissing the criminal charges against Morgan on the basis that the facts alleged did not constitute criminal offenses. We further conclude that Morgan has failed to establish that the criminal statutes in question were void for vagueness as applied to her. …
The judgment of the trial court is reversed and we remand with instructions.
Pyle, J., and Altice, J., concur.