Published on: Thursday, November 2, 2017

A recent news article discusses how federal prosecutors are responding to the opioid epidemic by seeking longer sentences under the enhanced penalty provisions of the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. (b)(1)(A-C), which imposes a 20-year minimum mandatory sentence death or serious bodily harm resulted from the use of a controlled substance that was distributed by the defendant.  During a recent news conference following the announcement of a 25-year sentence in a heroin case resulting in death, United States Attorney Robert J. Higdon, Jr., from the Eastern District of North Carolina, said that the federal statute is needed to help combat a soaring opioid epidemic that resulted in 60,000 drug overdoses last year.  Higdon predicted the “death result law will be used more and more frequently.”