He tried to save a friend. They charged him with murder.

All told, the state’s attorney’s office had taken on six pending fentanyl homicide cases in recent months, and they all followed the same pattern: an addict sold, distributed, or shared drugs that directly resulted in someone’s death, which technically complied to the definition of first-degree murder and the possibility of a life sentence in Oklahoma and an increasing number of other states.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill this month to reclassify fentanyl overdose deaths as “poisonings,” and Arkansas passed a “delivery death” bill in April to frame some overdoses as homicides in an effort to get someone from selling or even sharing fentanyl. Prosecutors in Alaska, California, Florida and at least a dozen other states began filing new murder cases against any defendant who fit the broad definition of a fentanyl dealer: a 17-year-old in Tennessee who, after graduating from college, was distributing fentanyl in the parking lot of the school with three of her friends, two of whom died; a husband in Indiana who bought fentanyl for his disabled wife, who overdosed while trying to numb her chronic pain from multiple sclerosis; a Florida real estate agent who threw a party and called 911 when one of her guests overdosed; a high school student in Missouri who gave one pill to a 16-year-old girl he met at church and warned her to “just do one quarter and then the other quarter if you don’t feel it.”

A group of Republican senators, including one from Oklahoma, introduced a bill in February to charge fentanyl traders and dealers across the country with felony murder in what Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio called a “simple, common sense step to turn the tide.” help turn around”. and protect our communities”

But when Mai studied Askins’ file, he saw that the Oklahoma City police officers in that case had not traced the lethal dose of fentanyl to a cartel manufacturer, or to a drug trafficker, or to a major dealer, or even to the street-level dealer who known as “Suge” who had sold the fentanyl to Askins and Drake and whose name Askins gave to police at the scene. Instead, they arrested and charged just one person, Askins, who had a criminal record of nonviolent drug offenses. His file showed that he had depression, anxiety and PTSD from being raped by a neighbor when he was 9. dumpsters and donating plasma twice a week.

Mai left private practice and took a 40 percent pay cut to become a public defender in his home state because he wanted to work on this type of case. He’d imagined fighting for the underdog, standing and preaching before a jury like his idol, Clarence Darrow, whose trial victories propelled the civil rights movement. But the reality of Mai’s job meant he had to manage 80 or 90 cases at a time – petty copper thefts, drug deals and domestic disputes that usually ended with his clients closing deals and pleadings against lesser charges. In his nearly two years as a public defender, he had never taken a case to trial.