Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, is once again trying to pass a bill that would create a felony homicide charge for anyone who manufactures, sells, or distributes fentanyl or heroin to someone who dies from an overdose.
“Under Virginia law, if you share drugs with someone and they die, you can be charged with felony homicide. Yet the dealer who sells the drugs and walks away isn’t held accountable for that death,” McDougle said in a comment Wednesday. “We are committed to fixing this injustice and ensuring accountability for those who harm families across the Commonwealth.”
McDougle sponsored this same bill in 2023, and Senate Democrats on the Courts of Justice Committee killed it.
“If we save one life, we are doing our job,” said Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, during the 2023 committee meeting.
The Virginia chapter of the ACLU did not support the bill and spoke in opposition to it during the meeting last year.
“Overdose deaths in Virginia demand that we do more than double down on punitive measures that have already proven they don’t work,” ACLU-VA Policy and Advocacy Strategist Shawn Weneta said in a comment to Virginia Scope at the time. “We don’t need additional incarceration: we need treatment, training, education, and resources. Virginian families deserve nothing less.”
Republicans viewed this legislation as a no-brainer that will save lives down the road. One woman speaking to the committee last year said the same dealer separately provided the pills that killed her family member and the son of another woman who was present speaking to the committee.
Perry, the only Democrat to support the legislation, talked about why she supported the bill prior to the vote taking place.
“If you are convicted of felony homicide in distribution, those are two separate offenses that occur on your criminal history,” she said. “When a prosecutor picks it up, they’re able to see not only that you distributed and how much time you got for it, but [that] you killed someone whenever you distributed. That is important because if you come back into the criminal justice system and are back on another charge of distribution, it would matter to me as a prosecutor if you have previously distributed and taken someone else’s life.”