Drug-induced homicide laws and false beliefs about drug distributors: three myths that are leaving prosecutors misinformed

AuthorTaleed El-Sabawi, Jennifer J. Carroll, and Morgan Godvin
PositionAssistant Professor of Law, Florida International University, College of Law/Assistant Professor of Anthropology, North Carolina State University/Fellow, Heath in Justice Action Lab, Northeastern University
Pages1381-1401
ARTICLES
DRUG-INDUCED HOMICIDE LAWS AND FALSE BELIEFS ABOUT
DRUG DISTRIBUTORS: THREE MYTHS THAT ARE LEAVING
PROSECUTORS MISINFORMED
Taleed El-Sabawi*, Jennifer J. Carroll**, and Morgan Godvin***
ABSTRACT
An increasing number of criminal legal system actors, including some prosecu-
tors, have acknowledged that the so-called overdose crisisis a public health
problem. Despite this narrative shift, some prosecutors are responding to local
overdoses by charging persons who distribute drugs that are linked to a subse-
quent death with criminal killing. These charges are brought either through the
use of existing, non-specific statutes or so-called drug-induced homicide
(DIH) statutes, which explicitly criminalize the act of delivering a substance
subsequently associated with a death. In this Article, we outline three salient
themes that have emerged from early literature and from preliminary surveys
exploring prosecutors’ perceptions of and justifications for filing DIH charges. In
doing so, we provide empirical evidence to suggest that these narratives are
based on myths about drugs and the people who use and distribute themmyths
that are not supported, and are sometimes contradicted by, scientific research.
This Article aims to dispel some of these pervasive yet unsound narratives con-
tributing to the prosecutorial belief that DIH prosecutions have the capacity to
improve public health and reduce overdose. In doing so, this Article also pro-
vides prosecutors with an alternative framework for more accurately conceptual-
izing how prosecutorial action against people who use and distribute drugs
impacts the health and well-being of the entire communityincluding persons
who use drugs. Finally, this Article also elucidates how well-intentioned prosecu-
tors may be unwittingly causing more fatal overdoses by discouraging calls to
911 during an overdose emergency and by disrupting local drug markets in ways
that directly increase the risk of overdose.
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1382
* Assistant Professor of Law, Florida International University, College of Law. Sincerest thanks to Professors
Maybell Romero and Justin Erwin and to the American Criminal Law Review for organizing the 2022 Annual
Symposium: Reform-Minded Prosecution. We would also like to thank Cameron Moody for his research
assistance. © 2023, Taleed El-Sabawi, Jennifer J. Carroll, and Morgan Godvin.
** Assistant Professor of Anthropology, North Carolina State University.
*** Fellow, Heath in Justice Action Lab, Northeastern University.
1381
I. THE MISTAKEN BELIEFS UNDERLYING THE NARRATIVES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1386
A. Myth #1: Harsh Criminal Penalties, Like Those for Homicide,
Deter Illicit Drug Use and Drug DistributionIncluding
Distribution of Illicitly-Manufactured FentanylWhich, in Turn,
Decrease Overdose Deaths and Other Harmful Behaviors . . . . . 1387
B. Myth #2: Seizing Drugs and Removing a Person Who
Distributes Drugs from the Drug Market Will Decrease the
Drug Supply, and Decreasing Drug Availability Will Decrease
Overdose Deaths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1391
C. Myth #3: People Who Use Drugs Need Protection from People
Who Distribute Drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1393
1. Myth #3(a): People Who Use Drugs and People Who Distribute
Drugs Are Two Mutually Exclusive Categories. . . . . . . . . . . 1393
2. Myth #3(b): People Who Use Drugs Are Helpless and Are
Physically or Psychologically Incapable of Stopping Their Use,
Which Makes All Drug Distribution Inherently Harmful . . . . 1395
3. Myth #3(c): People Who Distribute Drugs Are Poisoning the
Drug Supply and Causing More Overdose Deaths . . . . . . . 1397
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1400
INTRODUCTION
Nearly 108,000 people in the United States are estimated to have died of a drug
overdose in 2021a fifteen percent increase over 2020
1
U.S. Overdose Deaths in 2021 Increased Half as Much as in 2020 - But Are Still Up 15%, CTRS. FOR
DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (May 11, 2022), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/
2022/202205.htm. For the primary source of data that this press release was based on, see F.B. Ahmad, Y.
Chong, J.A. Cisewski, J.M. Keralis, A. Lipphardt, L.M. Rossen & P. Sutton, Provisional Drug Overdose Death
Counts, CTRS. FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (Feb. 15, 2023), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/
drug-overdose-data.htm.
and the largest number of
persons to die from overdoses in the years tracked by the National Center for
Health Statistics.
2
Overdose rates among non-Hispanic Black persons and
American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) persons have skyrocketed, rising forty-
four percent and thirty-nine percent, respectively, between 2019 and 2020.
3
Mbabazi Kariisa, Nicole L. Davis, Sagar Kumar, Puja Seth, Christine L. Mattson, Farnaz Chowdhury &
Christopher M. Jones, Vital Signs: Drug Overdose Deaths, by Selected Sociodemographic and Social
Determinants of Health Characteristics25 States and the District of Columbia, 2019-2020, 71 MORBIDITY AND
MORTALITY WKLY. REP. 940, 941 (2022), https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7129e2-H.pdf.
Of note, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that opioid overdose mortality among non-Hispanic Black persons
rose nearly fifty-four percent between 2019 and 2020. See Opioid Overdose Deaths by Race/Ethnicity, KAISER
FAM. FOUND., https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-deaths-by-raceethnicity/?data (last
visited Feb. 26, 2023).
The
continually increasing rates of overdose deaths reinforce the reality that the U.S. is
1.
2. See Ahmad et. al., supra note 1.
3.
1382 AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 60:1381

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