Should fentanyl dealers face manslaughter charge?
The threat of a manslaughter charge may do little to deter fentanyl traffickers, B.C. legal experts say.
Republicans in New Hampshire, which is facing an overdose crisis like that in B.C., are currently proposing a requirement for a manslaughter charge for fentanyl dealers when a user dies. In October, Edmonton police laid a manslaughter charge against a 25-year-old man in connection with the overdose death of another man early last year.
“If you can prove that they knew they were trafficking a controlled substance — in this case, it was fentanyl — and a reasonable person at the time would know that the controlled substance is likely to cause bodily harm and you can show that controlled substance caused the death, those satisfied the elements of manslaughter,” acting Staff Sgt. Dave Monson of the Edmonton police homicide section said in October.
But Rob Gordon, a professor at the Department of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, said a push for manslaughter charges in B.C. fentanyl-trafficking cases would be “purely a symbolic measure” and likely fail to deter fentanyl dealers.
“That’s because of the improbability of a prosecution proceeding in the context of manslaughter,” he said. “It’s not that easy to successfully prosecute and under the circumstances you’d have to determine whether the street-level dealer actually knew or had reckless disregard for the probability that the drugs that he or she was peddling contained fentanyl or another contaminant.”
Gordon said such a strategy would appeal to the families and friends of victims who are outraged at the dealers who sold the fentanyl.
“But, unfortunately, it’s just not something that would be successful, in my view,” he said.
Isabel Grant, a professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of B.C., said a number of legal barriers may arise for Crown prosecutors when trying to prove culpability in such cases.
“When you charge a person with manslaughter, you have to prove that that person caused the death, so you would have to prove that it was the drug provided by Person X to the victim that actually caused that death,” she said.
“The other issue is around mens rea,” she said. “In order to convict someone of murder, you would have to show that that person either knew they were certainly going to kill that person or that they knew they were going to cause them bodily harm likely to cause death.”
As well, a sentence of manslaughter may not make “a whole lot of difference” in deterring fentanyl dealers when both manslaughter and the trafficking of Schedule I drugs carry maximum life sentences, Grant said.