Rhode Island Senate OKs life sentences in drug fatalities

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As the General Assembly worked through what members hoped would be the session’s penultimate night, the Senate Thursday night passed an array of bills to allow life sentences for drug dealers when someone they sold drugs to dies, put electronic cigarettes under the same laws as conventional smokes and have public schools include “age appropriate” instruction on consent before sexual activity.

The bill that would allow life sentences for someone who sells a lethal dose of a controlled substance passed the Senate 25-8.

Sen. Frank S. Lombardi, D-Cranston, like other supporters of the bill, recalled the heartbreaking testimony the Judiciary Committee members heard while deliberating the bill. The possibility of sentencing a drug dealer to life in prison for selling a fatal dose of a controlled substance was a needed step to combat the state’s growing opioid crisis, he said. Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Erin Lynch Prata, D-Warwick, said if a drug dealer sells a drug that kills someone, that dealer is responsible for that death.

Several opposing senators said they feared that bill would excessively punish low-level drug dealers, who often don’t know what is in what they are selling, instead of the higher-level “cooks” who knowingly blended the fatal doses.

Read more: http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20180621/ri-senate-oks-life-sentences-in-drug-fatalities