Under statute signed by Bill Clinton, drug dealers can be executed
By ARTHUR ALLEN
03/20/2018 06:03 PM EDT
... the 1994 death penalty statute was part of a clampdown on drug dealers ... But it was a bridge too far even for zealous prosecutors because many believed it would be found to violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, said Ojmarrh Mitchell, a professor of statistics and criminology at the University of South Florida.
"In the absence of a direct link to a death, the constitutionality of death penalty prosecution is shaky at best," said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University ...
In its comment on a 2008 child rape case, the Supreme Court effectively removed drug smuggling per se as a capital crime, said Berman. "It has never been pursued, and if it were pursued with Trump’s urging, there would be extensive litigation that would go to the Supreme Court" ...
Jon Zibbell, a medical anthropologist at RTI International who regularly interviews opioid dealers and users, warned against a 1980s-style panic in response to fentanyl’s lethality. A major new drug enforcement push could swell the prison population with low-level dealers without making a dent in supply — just like the response to the crack epidemic, he said ...
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/20/death-penalty-drug-dealers-trump-clinton-476374