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Using major-dealer laws to prosecute small-time junkies for homicide

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Illinois

* This state statute needs to be revisited…

John Galloway and Jake Czipo were friends and drug users — that much is clear. Each had been through treatment, but when they met at Czipo’s Crystal Lake house on a spring night in 2017, neither appeared to be devoted to sobriety.

But that’s where the clarity ends. Czipo used heroin and died that night. Galloway is being held criminally responsible.

That’s because, according to McHenry County prosecutors, Galloway provided the drugs that claimed Czipo’s life. It doesn’t matter that Galloway allegedly got some for himself, too. It doesn’t even matter that he called 911 when he saw that Czipo had stopped breathing.

Such is the paradox of Illinois’ drug-induced homicide law. It’s a measure that was created during the 1980s crack epidemic to go after major dealers, but critics say it’s increasingly being wielded against those at the bottom of the distribution chain: addicts who simply share drugs with friends or intimate partners. […]

“Even if you’re an addict, once you cross that line and give it or sell it to someone, you become a dealer,” said DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin, whose office investigates every overdose for possible criminal charges. “In my opinion, the law treats you differently.”

This won’t create any unintended consequences at all. Nope.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 10:37 am

Comments

Sad to say this, but maybe when white kids start doing hard time for petty drug crimes, there might actually be pressure for the system to get reformed

Comment by Grand Avenue Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:05 am
I may be offbase with this comment, but I don’t think we should be charging dealers with homicide just for selling drugs. If they knowingly sell contaminated drugs, that’s different. Fentenyl-laced substances, for example. Or if they knowingly obstructed someone to take 3 times the common amount, etc. or if they sell to children. The normal dealer isn’t the cartel.

Comment by Thoughts Matter Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:15 am
Wasn’t there a safe harbor provision, that if you’re doing something illegal and call for medical help, you won’t be prosecuted for the drug use that led to the need for medical help? That it’s more important to keep people alive than to scare them into watching people die before they seek help and put themselves at risk?

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:16 am
“Wasn’t there a safe harbor provision, that if you’re doing something illegal and call for medical help, you won’t be prosecuted for the drug use that led to the need for medical help?”

Illinois’ Good Samaritan law only provides immunity from prosecution for Class 4 possession charges; prosecutors can and do sidestep the immunity by charging people with possession with intent to deliver, or if there is a fatal overdose, with drug-induced homicide.

Comment by charles in charge Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:35 am
This is why you have to constrain prosecutors. Out of control, wasting resources, destroying lives.

Comment by Precinct Captain Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 11:46 am
I suspect the major dealer/small time “junkie” (maybe use a different word there, Rich) line is much fuzzier than we expect it to be.

Comment by A State Employee Guy Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 12:02 pm
===is much fuzzier than we expect it to be===

Lots of drug users sell small amounts to friends to subsidize their own addictions/habits (and get their fixes at less than street retail prices). That doesn’t make them major dealers.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 12:12 pm
Is the Physician who prescribes Oxycontin or Fentanyl to a patient who perishes due to overdose a drug dealer as well?

Should not that Physician be charged with the crime of murder as well?

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 12:27 pm
Another “War” on sick People.

#Addiction is not a crime…

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 12:39 pm
Yet, when was the last time you have heard of a railroad being prosecuted for leaving a boxcar of weapons unguarded? The DA’s go after the easy targets.

Comment by A Jack Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 1:22 pm
When you have the largest prisons in the world, and highest rates of incarceration, then we have to be creative in finding new ways to fill them.

Comment by 33rd Ward Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 1:34 pm
I agree with that, Rich. But there are levels between that example and drug kingpin which make it difficult to discern where the line between mutual sharing amongst friends ends, and major dealing begins.

Comment by A State Employee Guy Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 3:30 pm
People don’t like to hear this, but the buying and selling of drugs is a victimless crime. A liquor store will sell whiskey to an alcoholic. Same thing. Time to end the War on Drugs and treat addiction as the medical condition that it is.

Comment by striketoo Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 6:26 pm
The brilliance of reagan the law treats you differently

Comment by Rabid Monday, Aug 13, 18 @ 6:41 pm