Subcommittee amends Senate Bill 156 to narrow fentanyl-induced homicide language, sends bill forward

Chairman Jeff Johnson said the Criminal Law Subcommittee gave a favorable report on Senate Bill 156, as amended, after members approved a technical change by unanimous consent.

The bill would create a new felony offense for “fentanyl-induced homicide,” defined in the bill text as the unlawful delivery or dispensing of fentanyl or a fentanyl-related substance to another person who dies after injecting, absorbing, ingesting or otherwise taking the substance. The subcommittee amendment added an explicit cross-reference to the trafficking-in-fentanyl statute and clarified how prosecutors must prove the offense.

The clarification was offered and explained at the subcommittee meeting by Lisa Catalanado, executive director of the South Carolina Commission on Prosecution Coordination. Catalanado…