Committee OKs bill to expand drug-induced homicide law
An Illinois Senate committee approved legislation Wednesday that would expand the state's drug-induced homicide law in response to the dismissal of charges against two Madison County defendants.
Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, introduced the amendment last week, which has passed the senate's Criminal Law Committee. It would allow prosecutors to charge someone with drug-induced homicide even when the delivery of the drugs to the victim occurred outside the state. Madison County State's Attorney Tom Gibbons had requested the change in the law after two of his office's cases fell apart earlier this month because the defendants allegedly delivered the heroin in Missouri to victims who overdosed in Illinois.
"If a drug-induced homicide occurs in Illinois, our prosecutors should have the jurisdiction to bring the offender to justice," said Haine, a former Madison County state's attorney and assistant public defender. "This law reflects the reality of the drug trade in the metro-east. Many drug addicts jump state lines to buy heroin or other dangerous drugs."
On May 10, Madison County Associate Judge James Hackett acquitted Taylor Kennedy, 20, of Troy, because the heroin was allegedly bought and delivered to his 17-year-old girlfriend, Shannon Gaddis, in St. Louis. Gaddis died of a heroin overdose in January 2011 in her home near Troy.
A week following that ruling, Gibbons requested Hackett dismiss a drug-induced homicide charge against Adam C. Butler, 42, of north St. Louis County, for the same reasons. Butler was accused of delivering heroin to Joshua Rogers, 30, of East Alton, who overdosed last May in a Godfrey motel.
Kennedy's attorney had argued the state's drug-induced homicide statute requires that the drugs had to be delivered in Illinois, specifically in violation of the state's Controlled Substances Act. Prosecutors had countered that since an element of the crime occurred in Illinois, Gaddis' death, the state's drug-induced homicide law applied.
Madison County Public Defender John Rekowski testified Wednesday before the Criminal Law committee, of which Haine is a member, that his amendment was unnecessary because other states have the ability to prosecute these cases.
"The taxpayers of Illinois should not be burdened with the expense of prosecuting, defending and imprisoning defendants for out-of state criminal conduct," he said.
Rekowski's office had sought a dismissal of Butler's charge prior to the Kennedy ruling, because the alleged delivery and injection of heroin occurred in Missouri.
"If the mere act of someone dying in Illinois warrants this expansion, then every time a drug overdose is flown in from Indiana to Rush Medical Center in Chicago, Cook County will have a duty to prosecute a drug-induced homicide where everything occurred in Indiana, if that person expires," Rekowski said.
Haine said Rekowski is an old friend, "but in this instance he is wrong."
The law is intended to deter deaths from occurring in Illinois in cases when people give a person so many drugs they die or in cases of actual murder when the suspect tries to cover up the crime by arguing the victim died of an overdose, Haine said.
"This is not just some happenstance loophole," he said.
Gibbons' office has increasingly used the drug-induced law in the last year in response to a dramatic rise in heroin overdoses in Madison County.
Rekowski said the victims in these cases knew what they were doing.
"The deceased knows the danger of the undertaking and chooses to undertake the risk of dying by taking illegal drugs," he said.
Haine is trying to get the amendment passed before the legislative session ends May 31. If the Senate approves it, the measure would go back to the state house where Rekowski may be waiting.
"I may take another shot at it over there," he said.
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