A bipartisan bill in the California Legislature that would have allowed prosecutors to charge fentanyl dealers with murder if someone dies as a result of them ingesting a drug they sold, failed to pass in the Senate Public Safety Committee March 28.
Senate Bill 44, introduced last month by Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana), would have required drug dealers, following an offense related to fentanyl, to be notified that if they sell it again and someone dies from taking it, they could be charged with murder or voluntary manslaughter.
“That doesn’t mean that the fight is over. It just means that once again we have another challenge in front of us,” Umberg said at a press conference following the vote. “At this point, I’m somewhat stunned. I’m obviously disappointed, but I’m committed to working on this issue.”
The bill is modeled after the state’s so-called Watson Waiver admonishment given to drunk drivers—that if they are caught driving intoxicated again and kill someone in the process they face a second-degree murder charge instead of manslaughter.
A similar bill was previously introduced by former Republican state Sen. Melissa Melendez in 2021, but it failed in committee later that year. She named it Alexandra’s Law in honor of 20-year-old Alexandra Capelouto, who died in 2019 when she took half a pill of a counterfeit prescription painkiller laced with fentanyl.
The dealer, Brandon Michael McDowell, has since been sentenced to nine years in federal prison.
Umberg revived the bill with the same name.
State Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa), who co-authored the bill said at the press conference she was “heartbroken” by her colleagues’ vote.
The bill would have been “one prong in the multi-faced approach we must take in addressing the fentanyl crisis,” she said. “A policy like SB44 would make a difference.”
Democrat Sens. Aisha Wahab, Steven Bradford, Nancy Skinner, and Scott Wiener all abstained from voting, causing the bill to fail which needed majority support. The latter three senators also voted down Alexandra’s Law last year.
Their reasoning is that the bill appears to repeat failed drug policies that they said have led to mass incarceration.
Wiener additionally said during the committee meeting hearing that some drug dealers are unaware the drugs they are selling are laced with fentanyl, so any kind of warning about the ramifications of doing so would be pointless.
“We’re going to have situations where some college kid sells what they think is a Percocet [and] has no idea it has fentanyl … to their college classmate. And then they’re going to get that triggered warning when they had no idea and no reason to know,” Wiener said.
Matt Capelouto, the father of Alexandra of whom the bill is named, slammed the lawmakers at the news conference.
“I’m appalled to be standing here once again expressing disagreement with a decision of the Public Safety Committee that refuses, absolutely refuses, to do anything about the epidemic ripping our communities apart,” he said. “The first time I was stunned. The second time I was angry.”
He also said the warning in the bill would have given drug dealers “a chance to change direction to avoid serious accountability. They are given an opportunity to save themselves from a life behind bars. And if they don’t take that opportunity, they pay a price.”
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, were in Sacramento to show their support for the bill.
“So many people are dying from [fentanyl] overdoses,” Gloria said at the news conference. “If you can see the line of corpses in our coroners’ offices across the state of California and not realize we need to take action … to have consequences for illegal behavior, accountability for reckless endangerment of peoples’ loved ones … I feel right now that’s not necessarily happening.”
Jenkins additionally said the bill would have given “a warning that gives that person pause next time they think about selling fentanyl, so that we can save lives.”
Over 100,000 people died of drug overdoses nationally in a one-year period ending in August 2022 and the majority were caused by fentanyl and other illicit synthetic drugs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Upon request by Umberg, the committee granted the bill reconsideration, giving it another opportunity for a vote at a future meeting.
Last week in the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee, two bills—AB 1058 and AB 367—that would have increased penalties for fentanyl dealers were postponed indefinitely.
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