Drug Induced Homicide Defense Toolkit
access to data beyond the basic lab report from any testing performed by the state, it is recommended you request the full “case file” or “litigation package” during discovery.129
b. Query determination of manner of death as accident or homicide for evidence of bias Medical examiners and some coroners can legally determine whether the manner of death from an overdose was an accident or a homicide. This follows the NAME standards, which provides that an overdose can either be determined an accident or a homicide.130 However, in their most recent position paper, NAME states that, “a death certificate is no place for the legal system to try to arrange words and concepts in a way to help one side of a potential legal dispute to gain an advantage” and that “homicide as the manner of death for a drug overdose should be reserved for an intentional exposure to inappropriately sedate or end the life of a specific individual as a kind of assault or
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See Carrie Allman & Brie Halfond, Defending Drug Overdose Homicides in Pennsylvania, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Nov. 6, 2019), https://www.nacdl.org/getattachment/400082f9-aa38-426a-b6a1-6bdde325281c/powerpoint-allman-halfond .pdf. 130
See Gregory G. Davis et al., National Association of Medical Examiners Position Paper: Recommendations for the Investigation, Diagnosis, and Certification of Deaths Related to Opioid Drugs, 3 Acad. Forensic Pathol. 77, 81 (2013), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.23907/2013.011?journalCode=afpa.
Version Date July 2021 – Check https://ssrn.com/abstract=3265510 for most current edition
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