AP Spins Rush Limbaugh Story

A week ago, Rush Limbaugh won a major victory in a Florida court over government efforts to invade his medical privacy.

But you wouldn’t know it from major media reports, as a Florida judge’s ruling in Limbaugh’s ongoing prescription drug case was distorted in newspapers and on TV news reports all across the nation.

Thank the Associated Press for the media spin.
In the initial AP story on the court case, the headline read: "Judge Allows Subpoenas of Limbaugh Doctors."

The wire service then reported that Palm Beach County "Circuit Court Judge David F. Crow ruled that Florida laws do not prevent doctors from talking with prosecutors if the information is relevant to the prosecution of a crime."

Sounded like a stunning defeat for Limbaugh.

But the AP failed to note another critical fact: The judge ruled that the questioning of anyone’s doctor -– including Limbaugh’s –- could only take place if the defendant has been charged with a crime.

Limbaugh has not been charged with any crime.

After Limbaugh’s representative protested that the headline was misleading, the AP acted promptly but only added the words "with restrictions" to the headline.

Jack Stokes, a spokesman for the AP in New York told NewsMax.com that when the initial headline was brought to their attention it was immediately changed.

Correctly, Limbaugh’s legal team hailed the court ruling as a victory.

In a release issued after the ruling, attorney Roy Black wrote: "We are pleased with the court's ruling upholding the patient's statutory right of doctor-patient confidentiality. We've said from the start that there was no doctor shopping, but Mr. Limbaugh should not have to give up his right to doctor-patient confidentiality to prove his innocence. The medical records that the state has seized and reviewed now for nearly six months show that Mr. Limbaugh received legitimate medical treatment for legitimate medical reasons. Mr. Limbaugh has not been charged with a crime and he should not be charged."

In his ruling, Crow told prosecutors while they could subpoena Limbaugh's doctors, they cannot question the doctors about his medical condition or about what Limbaugh may have told the doctors while they were treating him –- the very questions they told the court they needed to ask.

In the ruling, Crow noted that Florida law "prohibits the discussion of the medical condition of the patient and any information disclosed to the health care practitioner by the patient in the course of care and treatment."

He added that "the state’s interrogation of petitioner’s physicians shall not include discussion of the medical patient and any information disclosed to the health care practitioner in the course of the care and treatment of the patient."

The court ruling was indeed a stunning defeat for the prosecution –- based on remarks made by Assistant State’s Attorney James Martz.

Martz told the court on Nov. 8 that he and the state’s attorney’s office has "no idea if Mr. Limbaugh has completed the elements of any offense."

Martz told the court that in order to proceed with his investigation he needed to have doctors answer questions about the basis for which they wrote prescriptions for Limbaugh.

Under the judge’s ruling, Martz is barred from asking any of these questions or any other similar ones unless the state charges Limbaugh with a crime.

But Martz has stated repeatedly that his office lacks any evidence to justify an indictment.
Earlier this year, Martz and the State’s Attorney Barry Krischer won an 18-month legal battle to review Limbaugh's medical records, arguing that these would prove whether he had committed a crime or not. Limbaugh lost at the circuit and appellate court levels, and the Florida Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Limbaugh handed over the records in July.

Martz told Judge Jeffrey Winikoff in a December 2003 hearing, "All the state is convinced of is those records are the only way to clarify the violations of law the state's currently investigating."
Similarly, in a March 2004 brief to the 4th District Court of Appeal, Martz wrote: "The state will not be in a position to know what it can charge, if anything, until the records are reviewed."
And again in April 2004, Martz told the 4th District Court of Appeal in oral arguments: "The investigators fully expected to find in those records a trail, a trail that was evinced by the pattern of conduct here that would likely lead to additional pharmacies, additional doctors and unknown as to how many different overlapping prescriptions."
As Limbaugh himself has noted, he has been subjected to a never-ending inquiry based upon a crime for which the prosecutor’s office itself admits it has no evidence.
"They get the records within the dates of the search warrants, and there's nothing in those records to show doctor shopping," Limbaugh said in remarks published on his Web site last week. "So they go back to court, and say: We need to talk to Limbaugh's doctors.
"Now they want to talk to the doctors, but they can't talk to the doctors about me or my condition or what I said. Yet it's all been portrayed as a victory for the prosecutors."
Limbaugh wasn’t surprised by the media spin.
"It's no different than the way the Iraq war is being reported," he said. "It's no different than the way half the other news in the country is being reported. The amazing thing is there's nothing we can do about it. We can play the process out and keep responding to these people as they take their aggressive action. But it's what the legal process has become. You know, people trying to criminalize political enemies, and it's taken on a life of its own."
Limbaugh may have good reason to suggest a political motive is at work. A careful examination of the facts suggests his prosecution is based on a flimsy case of doctor shopping.
Krischer's office has already leaked to the local press confidential details of Rush's medical records, including claims that he obtained thousands of pills from several doctors.
But Black contends that information is nothing more than an effort to smear Limbaugh and that there has been no doctor shopping on Limbaugh's part.

"The prescription records that are in the search warrant affidavits should be put in perspective," he maintained in a statement issued in July.

"Of the 2,130 pills prescribed, only 1,863 were painkillers, and of those only 1,733 were for hydrocodone. These were to be taken over a period of 217 days, from the date of the first prescription until 30 days from the date of the last prescription.

"The dose averages out to a little over eight pills a day, which is not excessive and is in fact a lawful dose.

"Ninety-two percent of the pain medication was prescribed by two doctors who were treating Mr. Limbaugh for back pain. They work in the same office from the same medical file, and there could be no doctor shopping between them. ...

"We continue to believe that Mr. Limbaugh is being pursued by overzealous prosecutors and that he should not be charged with any crime."