High Court to Decide if Drug Death Deserves Murder Charge

In a case that could provide a potent weapon against drug dealers, the state Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether murder charges can be brought against an Orange County man accused of providing cocaine to a teen-age girl who later died from the substance.

The justices, in a brief order, said they would review a ruling by a state Court of Appeal in Santa Ana last June upholding the dismissal of second-degree felony murder charges against Sandy Patterson of Tustin.

The appellate court said it was compelled to issue the ruling under what it called the “seriously flawed” state of the law and suggested the high court review the case to resolve confusion on the issue.

Under court decisions going back to 1965, second-degree murder charges can be brought when death results from commission of a felony that is “inherently dangerous” to human life.

Abstract Consideration

But the ability to prosecute has been greatly limited by rulings that the danger of the underlying crime--such as providing drugs--must be viewed “in the abstract.”

Otherwise, the courts have said, juries that looked instead to the particular circumstances of a case would almost always find the crime was “inherently dangerous” where the result was death.

A 1984 ruling by the state Supreme Court placed another barrier to such prosecutions by ruling that murder charges could not be brought if the underlying felony could “possibly” have been committed in a way that was not dangerous.

The justices’ decision to tackle the politically charged issue came as Congress is considering proposals to allow the death penalty for some drug-related murders and to increase the punishment for possessing drugs.

In an appeal of the June ruling, Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas J. Borris urged the justices to revise the legal standard in such cases to give prosecutors a “viable tool” against drug traffickers.

The current standard, requiring an abstract determination of whether the underlying felony is inherently dangerous, is “difficult, if not impossible” to apply, Borris said.

More Than Drug-Sale Charge

The district attorney’s petition for review was supported by state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp and the California District Attorneys Assn., which contended that the death of an individual from cocaine warrants more than just prosecution for the sale of the drug.

Shortly after the appeal court upheld the dismissal of charges against Patterson, it overturned a similar drug-related murder conviction in the case of Philip Gerald Alviso of Westminster, charged in the death of Philip Mikolajek in 1982.

Other murder prosecutions against alleged dealers in drug-overdose cases are pending in at least two other counties--Shasta and Tulare--according to the attorney general’s office.

Stephen Gilbert of Santa Monica, the court-appointed attorney for Patterson, refused to comment on the case. But in recent weeks, while the issue was pending in Orange County courts, civil liberties and defense lawyers expressed concern over expanding the law to permit murder prosecutions where death was neither intended nor likely to occur.

According to Orange County prosecutors, Patterson supplied cocaine to Jennie Licerio and one of her friends in 1986. The three inhaled the substance and smoked cigarettes containing a mixture of tobacco and cocaine, authorities said. Within a few hours, Jennie died of acute cocaine intoxication.

Patterson was charged with murder and other felony counts for furnishing an illegal substance. Orange County Superior Court Judge James J. Alfano upheld Patterson’s contention that he could not be prosecuted for murder because, in the abstract at least, providing the drug was not inherently dangerous. Patterson then pleaded guilty to charges of furnishing cocaine.

The high court’s order granting review was signed by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and Justices John A. Arguelles, David N. Eagleson and Marcus M. Kaufman. The case will be set for argument before the justices at a later date.