PANAMA CITY — Mandatory minimum sentencing reform for drug offenses will pass the state Legislature in 2014, its Senate co-sponsor predicts.
State Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, is confident the bill (SB 360) strikes the right balance, ensuring drug addicts get the help they need and the state saves money.
“I think we’ve established some definite principles to where … it will become law this year,” he said.
The bill would create a separate category in state statute called “trafficking in illegal prescription drugs,” but the name is deceiving. The law would apply to anyone possessing the drugs, not just buyers and sellers.
One reason its proponents say it’s needed is that, in determining the mandatory minimum senctence, the weight of the pills’ inert ingredients are included; sometimes heavier pills have the same amount of the active drug as the lighter ones.
Evers referenced a 2012 study that showed, under current law, seven pills could crack the 4-gram weight mark and land a three-year minimum prison sentence.
“It’s not being soft on crime; it’s actually being smart on crime,” he said of the proposed bill.
He said the reform would do more than save the state money; it would decrease the amount of drug-related crime.
“It’s just being smart, using your money more wisely,” Evers said.
The bill’s scope is narrow, focusing only on oxycodone and hydrocodone, which are opioids used to treat pain but also can provide a heroin-like high to drug abusers. Most prominently, it would eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for those caught with less than 14 grams of the prescription narcotics.
Right now, if suspects are convicted of illegal possession of just 4 grams of oxycodone or hydrocodone, they receive a minimum 3-year prison sentence and a $50,000 fine.
The bill would leave mandatory minimums in place, though, but reduce their severity.
If passed, 14 to 27 grams would yield a minimum three years and a $50,000 fine instead of 15 years and a $100,000 fine; 28 to 49 grams would be seven years and a $100,000 fine instead of 25 years and a $500,000 fine; and 50 to 199 grams would be 15 years and a $500,000 fine instead of 25 years and a $500,000 fine.
For more than 200 grams, the bill would levy a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years and a $750,000 fine, in line with current law.
The bill also would remove oxycodone and hydrocodone possession from the harshest punishment — life imprisonment — when holding 30 kilograms or more.
The bill is scheduled for an early hearing in the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice on Jan. 8. Identical companion legislation (HB 99) has been filed in the House and will be workshopped in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee next month.
“I think this shows the relevant leadership in the House and Senate is taking this seriously and wants to get something done,” said Greg Newburn, Florida director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
Second try
This is the second year the proposal will be taken up; it was hammered out late in the session last year and died due to lack of time, Newburn said.
Last session, the bill only passed out of the Criminal Justice Committee in the Senate, but it made it all the way to the floor in the House, though it never received a vote.
Newburn shared Evers’ optimism about the bill passing, though he was slightly more reserved.
“We are, I think, in the best position we’ve been in in the last few years,” he said. “This language was endorsed by Attorney General Pam Bondi last year; it was supported by the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association.”
The Florida Sheriffs Association, traditionally opposed to weakening drug laws, never took a side, Newburn said.
“These are allies in this fight that we haven’t had in a long time — we’re happy to have them — and with their support, we’re hopeful that the Legislature will do the right thing,” he said.
Newburn also acknowledged the bill represents a compromise. His group would like to see drug sentencing mandatory minimums eliminated. He said there’s no evidence they work, and they’re inefficient and unjustifiably expensive. He said judicial discretion is “easily the better alternative.”
Regardless, it would be a step in the right direction if the bill passed and it would bring some satisfaction, Newburn said.
“It does meaningfully improve our completely indefensible drug-sentencing laws,” he said.
But it would only be the first of many victories his group hopes to achieve.
“This one-size-fits-all, central-planning-sentencing policy — it needs to be reformed; it needs to be changed,” he said. “This is a good step in the right direction, but it’s not the last step — at least it shouldn’t be.”