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Tag: prosecuting drug dealers

  • Chicago May Begin Prosecuting Dealers For Overdose Deaths

    Chicago May Begin Prosecuting Dealers For Overdose Deaths

    The Chicago Police Department plans to create a task force to investigate drug deaths and prosecute dealers under the state’s drug-induced homicide law. 

    When someone dies of an overdose, is it their own responsibility, or should the person who provided the drugs be held criminally liable? 

    That’s the question that law enforcement and prosecutors around the country have been asking, and in Chicago the answer is beginning to change. Although the Chicago Police Department has not investigated drug deaths as homicides in the past, it is beginning to do so, according to CBS. 

    “It’s becoming an epidemic, so we need to do what we can to reduce that,” said Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson. 

    The Chicago Police Department now has plans to create a task force to investigate drug-related deaths and prosecute dealers under the state’s drug-induced homicide law.

    The Chicago Police Department has been inspired in part by the success of prosecuting drug dealers in nearby McHenry County. There, police and prosecutors target dealers in overdose deaths. 

    “Every single overdose case that happens in McHenry County, we assign a lawyer to work with police,” said McHenry County State’s Attorney, Patrick Kenneally. His office has prosecuted about 20 drug-induced homicide cases in the past three years, including 8 in 2017, when there were 80 overdose deaths in the county. The next year there were 51 overdoses, and 15 prosecutions for drug-induced homicide. 

    “This, we truly believe, is tangibly resulting in lives being saved,” Kenneally said. 

    In Chicago, only one overdose case has resulted in prosecution in the past four years. The victim in the case was the 18-year-old stepdaughter of Theresa Almanza, a police officer.

    Despite Almanza’s law enforcement experience, she was told that the city would do nothing to prosecute the people who provided her stepdaughter with drugs. 

    Almanza said, “The Chicago police department told me they don’t investigate these cases criminally. That Sydney made a choice and they weren’t going to investigate it.”

    The department said that the cases were difficult to prove, costly and time-consuming. However, Almanza didn’t give up, and eventually Brent Tyssen and Cynthia Parker were charged in connection with Sydney’s death.

    Tyssen was sentenced to six years in jail, while Parker was placed on probation. Almanza hopes that sentences like these will deter people from selling drugs, and help stem overdose deaths. 

    Now others, including police superintendent Johnson, are willing to give the strategy a try. 

    Johnson said, “I’m confident we’ll be able to model what they have out in McHenry County. Our children, their lives matter too, and these cases must be investigated criminally.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Feds Will Prosecute Fentanyl Dealers More Harshly in Baltimore

    Feds Will Prosecute Fentanyl Dealers More Harshly in Baltimore

    The feds are set to crackdown on fentanyl sellers in Baltimore, where there is expected to be twice as many overdose deaths as homicides in 2018.

    As part of the Trump Administration’s tough-on-crime stance, federal prosecutors will begin trying more fentanyl cases in federal court. They will be utilizing stronger resources and mandatory minimum sentences in an attempt to deter people from selling the deadly synthetic opioids in Baltimore, where there are expected to be twice as many overdose deaths as homicides this year. 

    Writing in an op-ed for The Baltimore Sun, US Attorney for Maryland Robert K. Hur said that the tougher tactics will hopefully curb fentanyl sales. As of last week, all fentanyl arrests in Baltimore are being reviewed by federal prosecutors who will decide whether the case will proceed in the state or federal system. This is part of the federal Synthetic Opioid Surge (SOS) initiative.

    “Federal prosecutors will pursue more cases involving fentanyl, bringing federal resources, laws and prison sentences to bear on those dealers who pose the greatest threat to public safety,” Hur wrote. “Word should spread that if you sell fentanyl on the streets, you run a very real risk of federal time.”

    Federal drug charges carry mandatory minimum sentences. Someone convicted of distributing 400 grams of fentanyl will face 10 years in prison; 40 grams will carry a five-year sentence. If the fentanyl is found to be involved in a death, there is a 20-year sentence. Because federal sentences are served in prisons far from home and have no possibility or parole or suspension, they’re seen as more harsh than state sentences. 

    “But criminal enforcement is essential to ending this crisis,” Hur wrote. “We need to target street dealers as well as corrupt pharmacists and medical providers. Treatment and prevention alone won’t stop the sellers, who are driven by profit and greed.”

    Hur shared the story of a 35-year-old woman who died of a fentanyl overdose. Before her death she texted a friend, “I don’t want to [be] this way. I worked and fought too hard to throw it all away. I almost overdose[d] the other night. I don’t know what to do.”

    “Law enforcement organizations know what to do in order to prevent more of these tragedies, and we are resolved to do it,” Hur wrote. 

    Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions first announced the SOS initiative in June, starting the program in 10 districts that were hard-hit by the opioid epidemic. 

    “We at the Department of Justice are going to dismantle these deadly fentanyl distribution networks. Simply put, we will be tireless until we reduce the number of overdose deaths in this country. We are going to focus on some of the worst counties for opioid overdose deaths in the United States, working all cases until we have disrupted the supply of these deadly drugs,” Sessions said in a press release at the time.

    View the original article at thefix.com