Cracking down
Fatal ODs should lead to murder charges
While the number of prosecutions remains small, the trend should have a chilling effect on anyone dealing drugs: More police departments are tracking down and filing murder charges against those who sell drugs linked to fatal overdoses.
The approach has been hailed as a way to combat the opioid epidemic, but as local cases demonstrate, it can be used to target those accused of improperly dispensing any drug in any setting, from the street corner to the doctor’s office.
Darnell Stephens, 23, of the North Side, the first person to be charged by Pittsburgh police with drug delivery resulting in death, was accused of selling $110 of heroin to a University of Pittsburgh student found dead of a fatal overdose on the South Side a year ago. He pleaded no contest and last month was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison.
Authorities in Allegheny, Washington and Westmoreland counties also are pursing, or recently brought to conclusion, other cases. Two cases in Westmoreland County involve physicians accused of improperly prescribing lethal drugs, a particularly troubling scenario.
Drug delivery resulting in death carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison — something that should make dealers reconsider their line of work. Perhaps the drugs they sell won’t kill someone. Maybe they will. Perhaps some will decide not to take the risk, even if would-be buyers are willing.
A year ago, the Post-Gazette reported that police departments sometimes failed to file the drug delivery resulting in death charge because overdoses traditionally have been viewed as accidental deaths, not homicides, and officers haven’t been trained to investigate them. That’s changing.
In the Pittsburgh case, police said Stephens admitted selling drugs to his victim on the day he died. In Washington County, authorities said they tracked the accused drug seller through phone records and a cooperating witness.
The war on drugs, especially opioids, requires persistence, innovation and hard work across numerous fronts. A handful of fatal delivery prosecutions won’t stop the tide of opoids being shipped here illegally from China, for example.
But authorities have to lock down as many access points as possible. Murder charges are one more way to get the job done.