Pubdate: Wed, 05 Jul 2006
Source: Asheville Citizen-Times (NC)
Copyright: 2006 Asheville Citizen-Times
Contact:  http://www.citizen-times.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/863
Author: Jordan Schrader

2 PLEAD GUILTY IN OVERDOSE DEATHS

MURPHY -- The district attorney's office representing much of Western 
North Carolina has twice won guilty pleas from people who provided 
prescription painkillers to someone who then died of an overdose.

District Attorney Michael Bonfoey said he could not recall pursuing 
any similar case in his district, which covers Haywood County and points west.

"We just decided to take a stand on that," he said. "I know these 
people are taking it voluntarily, but still somebody (is) providing 
them with illegal drugs."

Neither Amy Renee Graham, 26, nor Rebecca Grant Morrow, 34, will 
serve time in prison for their unrelated crimes after each pleaded 
guilty last week.

Judge J. Marlene Hyatt suspended their 16-month sentences and put 
them on probation, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the deaths of 22-year-old Rikki Bianca Hayden and 
29-year-old Jose Manuel Madrigal were similar.

Both tore open patches filled with the synthetic opiate fentanyl and 
ate the gel intended to be absorbed through the skin over three days, 
Assistant District Attorney Jason Smith said.

Madrigal used the patch prescribed to Morrow on Nov. 5, 2004. Morrow 
said Madrigal, a relative, and three other uninvited visitors stole 
it from her home.

"The people came to my house, they took my medication and something 
bad happened," she said. "It wasn't my fault, but I got blamed for it."

She pleaded guilty, she said, to avoid a trial on her original charge 
of second-degree murder.

State law provides for prison sentences of up to 32 years for people 
who provide certain illegal drugs causing death. Bonfoey said he's 
lobbying the General Assembly to lengthen that list of drugs.

In the other case, Smith said, Graham got the patch illegally from 
someone else. She passed it to Hayden on April 1, 2005.

An opponent of U.S. drug laws said he has noticed a rise in 
prosecutions for overdose deaths. The strategy has a "large potential 
for miscarriage of justice," said Eric Sterling of the Criminal 
Justice Policy Foundation, which supports regulating rather than 
prohibiting drugs.

"We would be flabbergasted," he said, "if somebody were prosecuted 
because he sold a gun to another person who modified the gun in such 
a way that it exploded when he pulled the trigger."