The Senate Corrections & Criminal Law Committee heard SB 290 authored by Sen. R. Michael Young on criminal law matters. The bill would (1) make possession of over 10 grams of a drug sufficient to convict for dealing offenses without additional evidence of intent to manufacture/deliver; (2) forbid probable-cause or reasonable-suspicion determinations to be based in any part on an individual’s participation in a needle-exchange program; and (3) permit a person to earn one day of good-time credit for every four days served on pretrial home detention.
Sen. R. Michael Young explained that (1) some participants in a dealer’s supply chain possess very large quantities of drugs meant for dealing, but can only be convicted of low-level possession offenses because they possess no other paraphernalia; (2) drug addicts have been arrested based on their possession of needles received through an exchange program, contrary to the programs’ purpose; and (3) jails should be reserved for offenders too dangerous for pre-trial release, but some pre-trial offenders prefer jail to home detention because of the opportunity to earn credit time.
The Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council supported the bill’s dealing-offense provision, was neutral on the needle-exchange provision as not significantly changing current practices, and opposed to the credit-time provision in favor of awaiting comprehensive recommendations of evidence-based pre-trial release. The Indiana Public Defenders Council supported the needle-exchange and credit-time provisions, but opposed the dealing-offense provision as imposing a too-low threshold and potentially increasing prison populations contrary to the intent of 2014 criminal code reform. By 8-1 vote, the bill was amended to change the 10-gram threshold to 28 grams. The bill passed as amended 7-2.
Read the bill at https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2016/bills/senate/290