BERLIN — It remains possible and likely probable that prosecutors will continue to try and convict drug dealers when their customers die, but in at least one local case, a state appeals court has made it more difficult.
In what has become an increasingly utilized weapon in the battle over the growing heroin epidemic, prosecutors have been successful in gaining manslaughter convictions for drug dealers whose customers fatally overdose. There have been a handful of such cases already in Worcester County where heroin dealers have been found guilty of manslaughter when he or she supplied the drugs that ultimately caused the fatal overdose of another individual.
In one local case, however, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals last week reversed the involuntary manslaughter conviction of Patrick Thomas, now 61, of Berlin, for supplying the heroin that caused the fatal overdose of another local man in June 2015. Thomas was sentenced to 20 years for a possession with intent to distribute heroin and 10 years for the manslaughter conviction. He did not challenge the possession with intent to distribute conviction and will continue to serve his sentence on that count.
However, he appealed the manslaughter conviction on the grounds there was not a direct connection between his sale of heroin to the victim and the victim’s death at a different place and time from where the transaction took place. Last week, the Court of Special Appeals agreed with Thomas’ assertion and reversed the manslaughter conviction in what could prove to be a test for similar cases going forward. It’s important to note the Court of Special Appeals’ lengthy opinion in the Thomas case does not make any broad determination on similar prosecution efforts in the future, but in this particular case points out the state was not successful in illustrating a direct connection between the heroin sale and the victim’s death.
“We do not prejudge future cases, nor make any broad pronouncement about the trend,” the opinion reads. “Rather, we hold here only that in prosecutions for involuntary manslaughter, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of a casual nexus between the defendant’s act and the victim’s death. Because it did not do so here, we will reverse the appellant’s manslaughter conviction.”
According to the opinion, Thomas was both a seller and user of heroin. When arrested at his home following the incident in June 2015, he was in possession of 60 white wax paper bags each of which contained heroin. Each bag was stamped “Banshee” in blue with a blue emblem. Thomas admitted to using about 12 of the bags of heroin per day. He also admitted out of the 60 bags he had recently obtained from his supplier, he sold about 30 for $10 to $15 each and would keep the rest for personal use. Those facts are not in question.
However, on the night of June 25 and early morning on June 26, 2015, Thomas received 28 phone calls and several text messages from the victim, who had previously purchased heroin from him in the past. The victim made an arrangement with Thomas to purchase four bags of heroin for $30. Later that morning, the victim was found dead of an apparent heroin overdose in the bathroom of his mother’s house.
With his body, police found four empty white wax paper bags stamped with “Banshee” and the blue emblem. Also found with the victim was a prescription bottle with the label torn off that contained six 50-milligram tramadol pills, which police theorized he had stolen from his mother. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner opined that the victim died of alcohol and narcotic intoxication.
Thomas was ultimately convicted of heroin distribution, manslaughter and reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to 20 years for the distribution count and a concurrent 10-year term for the manslaughter conviction.
The Court of Special Appeals opinion did not discount the intensity of the growing heroin epidemic in Maryland and beyond. However, the high court agreed there had been direct connection between Thomas’ sale of heroin to the victim and the victim’s ultimate overdose death.
“On the one hand, one would have to live under a rock- and we do not- to miss the evils that the distribution of drugs causes for our state and our nation,” the opinion reads. “On the other hand, the test isn’t whether the unlawful act- here drug distribution- has bad or even deadly effects. Rather, the question is whether drug distribution prohibited by all civilized societies. We know that it is not. We know, for example, that other drugs with similar effects and similar risks as those caused by heroin are routinely prescribed by doctors and sold by pharmacists.”
The Court of Special Appeals also pointed out other circumstances in which drugs or alcohol are legally distributed and regulated despite the known dangers.
“We know that alcohol has different properties, but is, in all respects, another drug with its own deleterious and addictive consequences if abused, but which the state chooses to regulate but not prohibit,” the opinion reads. “Moreover, we know the lines between lawful and unlawful conduct are changing. Recent changes in drug laws of transformed marijuana sales from a serious crime to a growth industry, licensed by states and required to pay taxes. There are places in our world where drug use is treated as a public health problem rather than a criminal problem and, as a result, the distribution of even heroin on those places his highly regulated but not absolutely prohibited.”
In essence, the high court opined the fundamental element in the Thomas case was a nexus between the drug transaction and the overdose death.
“Instead, our decision here rests on the requirement of legal causation,” the opinion reads. “The state must prove that the defendant’s unlawful act was the legal cause of the victim’s death.”
The Court of Special Appeals opinion points out the basic pillars of the state’s case against Thomas on the manslaughter count.
“Thomas sold [the victim] four bags of heroin,” the opinion reads. “Later, at another time in another place, [the victim] injected himself with an amount of heroin that he chose. He used heroin in conjunction with alcohol, which may have intensified the effect. In such a circumstance, we hold that the state failed to establish a casual connection between Thomas’ sale of heroin and [the victim’s] death.”
That is not to say there can’t or won’t be other cases in which a connection between the sale of heroin and the overdose death of a victim cannot be made. There have been a handful of such cases already in Worcester County and in Ocean City where the connection has been made and a manslaughter charge has been successful. Just last month, a Dover woman was found guilty of manslaughter for injecting her father with the heroin that caused his overdose death in an Ocean City hotel room in October.
“It is not impossible to imagine scenarios in which there will be a sufficient casual connection between the sale of heroin and the victim’s death to satisfy this element of the unlawful act variant of involuntary manslaughter,” the opinion reads. “There are cases in other jurisdictions, for example, where the defendant determined the dose and personally injected the victim. Similarly, there are situations in which the defendant adulterated the heroin, as with fentanyl, and the state can prove the adulteration was the ‘but for’ cause of the victim’s death. Here, however, where the casual chain was broken, there can be no liability for the unlawful act variant of involuntary manslaughter.”
The Court of Special Appeals opinion also points out it is not a drug dealer’s best interest to supply a customer with a dose that causes his or her death.
“We start with the premise, which the state appears to concede, that the sale of heroin without more is not gross negligence,” the opinion reads. “Rather we can infer the opposite, that a drug dealer wishes for his customers to remain alive so that he may sell them more heroin. Moreover, because low-level dealers are often themselves users and addicts, as Thomas is, they have not rational interest in making the conduct more dangerous.”
According to the opinion, the state’s case identified five facts which together support the conclusion Thomas acted in a grossly negligent manner. The amount of heroin contained in the four bags constituted a lethal dose, the victim was young and less experienced than Thomas, Thomas was aware the victim was an addict, Thomas was aware of the dangers of heroin use and “that the circumstances of the sale, in the middle of the night after the victim’s multiple frantic attempts to contact Thomas were ‘weird’.”
“We hold as a matter of law that these facts, if believed, are evidence of simple negligence, not the sort of gross negligence necessary to sustain a conviction for involuntary manslaughter,” the opinion reads. “Moreover, as described above, there must be a direct casual connection between the grossly negligent act and the victim’s death. Here, the facts do not support the necessary casual link.”
Again, it’s important to note despite the Court of Special Appeals overturning Thomas’ manslaughter conviction, the ruling should be taken to mean the high court believes all similar cases cannot be proven.
“We do not wish for this opinion to be misunderstood,” the opinion reads. “Thomas committed a serious crime and for it received a long sentence of incarceration. That was not challenged and we do not doubt its correctness. Nor do we say that drug dealers categorically cannot be liable for involuntary manslaughter when their customers die. We say only that the facts of this case do not legally support the conviction.”
