Prosecutors want to charge fentanyl drug dealers with murder, sparking legal battle
Some Southern California district attorneys are joining a growing national push to file murder charges against drug dealers who manufacture or sell fentanyl that ends up leading to deaths.
The efforts are part of a controversial move by authorities to target drug dealers who sell opioids laced with a deadly load of fentanyl, which is as much as 100 times more powerful than morphine. They have faced pushback from some in the legal community, who say it amounts to prosecutorial overreach and goes beyond what the law allows.
“These are not overdoses. These are murders,” Orange County Dist. Atty.
Todd Spitzer said Tuesday. “These dealers are essentially handing a loaded gun to unsuspecting victims knowing that they will probably die, and they don’t care. Fentanyl is cheap, it’s easy to get, and it’s killing people who had no idea they were taking it.”
Under Spitzer’s plan, those convicted of possession for sale of heroin, cocaine, or opiates that commonly contain fentanyl will be warned of the deadly consequences of trafficking. They could then be charged with murder if they go on to sell to someone who dies.
Prosecutors in Riverside and San Bernardino counties have also begun charging some drug dealers with homicide, as have officials in jurisdictions from Las Vegas to Maryland.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón, who was elected last year on a platform of criminal justice reform, does not support the efforts and has no plans to follow suit, an aide said.
“We have been down this road before: we know that increased penalties for drug offenses do not save lives. Over the last three decades, as we increased penalties, drugs became more potent, cheaper and easier to access. We need to learn from the failed strategies of the past, in order to find solutions for the future,” said Alex Bastian, a special advisor to Gascón.
Martin Schwarz, Orange County’s public defender, also rejected Spitzer’s move as beyond the scope of the law, noting that California prosecutors tried but failed to get the California Legislature to change the laws to make such charges possible. “Unless the Legislature changes course, there continues to be no legal basis for the courts to allow this,” he said.
Loyola Law professor Laurie Levenson said that to gain murder convictions, prosecutors will have to show that the drug dealer consciously disregards human life. “If you put on notice that what you are doing puts people at risk, that sets in place the type of malice required to prove second-degree murder,” she said. “You are going to have to show they knew that meth was laced with fentanyl.”