Change in law makes heroin death convictions more difficult to prosecute

A grieving mother displayed a photo of her son in a casket during a February sentencing of a man who had sold her child heroin, saying it's all she has left to remember him.

Stacy Iberg likely is one of many mothers over the past five years in Eastern Iowa who have either lost a child or had a child overdose on heroin.

Her son, Dustin Legrand, died from a heroin overdose last year after Ramon Freeman, 35, of Chicago, sold to someone who provided the heroin to Legrand. Freeman is now serving 30 years in federal prison.

Federal prosecutors say Freeman is only one of 75 people charged in U.S. District Court in the past five years for distribution of heroin, and 38 of those have been in Linn County. From 2011 to 2015, 14 defendants in the Northern District have been charged in cases involving heroin deaths and six have been charged with bodily injury that resulted from heroin overdoses.

But prosecuting these dealers has become more difficult after a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving an Iowa case in the Southern District, he said.

That case set a higher standard for prosecutors to meet in distribution cases involving death, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Chatham said. There must be sufficient evidence the heroin is what caused the death, according to the law.

Prosecutors previously only had to prove the heroin was a 'contributing cause.' In many of these cases, users may take other drugs along with the heroin.

In an overdose causing bodily injury, Chatham said, there has to be evidence that the user was at high risk to die without medical intervention.

Some cases haven't been able to meet that standard to convict for a heroin death, but Chatham and Patrick Reinert, also an assistant U.S. attorney, said they can argue in sentencing for more time based on other factors, such as previous convictions, purity of heroin or how close the dealer is to the main source.

In the sentencing for Freeman in February, Chatham argued for more prison time based on the purity — in that case, 68 to 73 percent — of heroin he was selling, and Freeman's position in the chain of distribution. Dealers with higher purity levels typically are closer to the main source, he said.

Chatham said the overdoses usually occur because the purity is so much higher than what the user is used to. In the past, the heroin might have been cut with another substance, so the dealers could have more product and make more money.

Chatham said there also are cases in the district where users have overdosed because it's mixed with another drug such as fentanyl, used to treat severe pain and often used after surgery.

There were two defendants indicted in June from Cedar Rapids for distribution of heroin/fentanyl and conspiracy to distribute heroin/fentanyl that resulted in bodily injury.