Louisiana Senate committee approves harsher sentences for fentanyl makers, drive-by shooters

A Louisiana Senate committee on Tuesday unanimously approved efforts to lengthen prison sentences for people who operate fentanyl labs and carry out drive-by-shootings, part of a push by some conservative lawmakers towards more tough-on-crime sentencing.

The Senate’s Judiciary C committee signed off on SB 49, which proposes increasing maximum jail terms from 15 to 40 years for people convicted of running fentanyl labs. The bill sponsored by Slidell Republican Sen. Sharon Hewitt also calls for escalating sentences for later arrests, with 99-year maximum terms for third-time arrestees.

“The hope (is) that we will send a message that we don’t want the labs, we don’t want the dealers,” said Hewitt, who is running for governor. “It’s time to leave our state and go somewhere else.”

The measure comes amid a broader effort by the GOP-controlled legislature to enact tougher penalties for accused drug distributors, incarcerated people who violate jail rules and 17-year-olds facing criminal charges, among others — measures being considered in an election year and on the heels of surging violent crime in Louisiana and nationally.

One of a few bills specifically targeting producers and distributors of the synthetic opioid through tougher sentences, Hewitt’s fentanyl measure works in conjunction with a House bill sponsored by Rep. Debbie Villio, R-Kenner, which floats similar punishments for people convicted of dealing the drug.

The bills have the support of powerful law enforcement interests, including the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association and the Louisiana District Attorney’s Association. Fentanyl, an opioid 500 times more powerful than heroin, has killed thousands in Louisiana in recent years and sent the state’s overdose rates soaring.

“I have seen every single drug craze come and go,” said Dr. Chuck Preston, the coroner for St. Tammany Parish told the committee. “The difference is people (who overdosed) lived; now, with fentanyl, people die.”

Also approved by the judiciary committee on Tuesday was SB 117. If signed by Gov. John Bel Edwards, the measure sponsored by New Orleans Democratic Sen. Jimmy Harris would increase maximum jail terms for people who commit drive-by shootings from three to 10 years.

The legislation defines drive-by shootings as incidents where someone fires a gun from a moving vehicle “with the intent either to kill, cause harm to, or frighten another person.” The bill would add to that definition shootings that occur on interstate highways. 

A slew of shootings lately have occurred along Interstate 10 in New Orleans as the city grapples with record-breaking homicides.

Laws proposing tougher sentences and more expensive cash bail have gained favor among some in the legislature, while others say those approaches hearken back to an era the state sought to leave behind with the passage in 2017 of a sweeping bipartisan justice reform package.

The future of those reforms are in question as some candidates for governor cater to voters with tough-on-crime messaging. Hewitt has said she would not seek to roll back the reforms if elected governor, citing the reforms’ success in driving down the state’s prison population by releasing primarily non-violent offenders. 

Speaking against Hewitt’s fentanyl bill, Bruce Reilly, a member of New Orleans-based progressive advocacy group Voice of the Experienced, told the judiciary committee the story of a longtime friend who died after repeatedly overdosing on fentanyl.

“Locking up one of the many, many, many dealers he’s had over his lifetime wouldn’t matter, because he’d just replace him with another one,” Reilly said.

The judiciary committee on Tuesday also advanced a bill sponsored by West Monroe Republican Sen. Jay Morris — SB 48 — aimed at curbing the number of people who walk free on bail while they await sentencing for crimes.

That practice has faced pushback from law enforcement, such as a recent case where East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore appealed a judge’s decision to grant bail for a woman while she awaited sentencing for poisoning to death a romantic partner. Morris argued that his bill would protect victims from convicted criminals who walk free as their trials continue. 

But on the whole, district attorneys, judges and criminal justice analysts say judges grant post-conviction bonds relatively infrequently.

Used sparingly, such bonds can serve victims as well as defendants, said Kelly Balfour, a district court judge in Baton Rouge. Judges opposed the bill, arguing it would cut into their sweeping discretionary powers over bond decisions.

Two Democrats on the committee, Sen. Regina Barrow of Baton Rouge and Sen. Gary Carter of New Orleans, voted against the measure’s passage. Morris’ cash bail bill, Hewitt’s fentanyl bill and Harris’s drive-by shooters bill all advanced to the Senate floor.