Editorial Roundup: Tennessee

Times and Democrat. October 9, 2023.

Editorial: Schools can be key in combating overdose deaths

Drug overdoses and the frequent deaths they cause are major problems for Americans from the young to the oldest among us.

Illegal drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine are longtime problems. Prescription opioids being overprescribed and overused is pronounced, though focus on legal drugs has led to stricter standards. Add fentanyl to the mix and the potential for death from overdoses reaches the crisis level.

From 2020 to 2021, the total number of drug overdose deaths in South Carolina increased by more than 430 individuals, from 1,734 deaths to 2,168: an increase of more than 25%. By comparison, there were only 573 drug overdose deaths in the state in 2012.

Because opioids continue to be the primary cause of overdose deaths, contributing to 1,733 of the 2,168 fatal overdoses in 2021, the state is looking for ways to save lives.

One is increasing the availability of naloxone (Narcan), a medication that can reverse the effect of opioids.

Earlier this year, lawmakers and the governor approved legislation authorizing DHEC, in consultation with the S.C. Department of Education, to make naloxone available in the state’s schools.

The law requires creation of a list of lifesaving medications school nurses and trained staff are authorized to use in schools and provides guidelines for each medication.

For the 2023-24 school year, DHEC authorized naloxone (Narcan) nasal spray and albuterol inhalers along with the previously approved epinephrine auto-injectors (e.g., EpiPen).

Albuterol is used to treat or prevent difficulty breathing, wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing and chest tightness in patients with asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and other lung diseases. Epinephrine is used to treat severe allergic reactions.

“We are dedicated to saving lives in schools by expanding access to these emergency medications through our partnership with schools and the Department of Education,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, DHEC director of public health.

“Naloxone is the lifesaving medication we hope no school nurse or trained school staff person ever has to administer, but we are in the middle of an opioid epidemic and need to be realistic and prepared,” said Victoria Ladd, state school nurse consultant. “While naloxone does not provide prevention for addiction, it can save lives when a person has taken too many opioid-containing drugs or medications so the person can live to get the help they need.”

Naloxone, when administered in time, can reverse the effects of overdose from opioids (oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, fentanyl, and others) and heroin. It is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and does not cause any harm if administered to someone not experiencing an opioid overdose.

Through DHEC’s partnership with SCDE, two boxes of naloxone (each containing two doses for a total of four doses per school) have been made available to every K-12 school in South Carolina that wants it. Funds for the supply being made available to schools was awarded through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s cooperative agreement Overdose Data-to-Action. There is no cost to the schools for the Narcan.

The law also allows naloxone to be administered not only to students but also to staff, parents and campus visitors as necessary. It can be used within the school or at any school-associated activity or event, such as sporting events.

Saving lives in schools and the communities they serve is the ultimate goal of making overdose treatment available in schools, which play a vital role in educating people about drugs and the dangers they pose when used illegally or misused. It is important that people be aware of what schools are doing in this regard and know enough about the overdose problem to be in support of the new law making lifesaving treatment available in schools.

Post and Courier. October 11, 2023.

Editorial: Latest secret early release of SC convict raises more questions

We already knew that convicted murderer Jeroid Price was not the only South Carolina inmate released from prison early under a once-little-known law that rewards prisoners for providing “substantial assistance” to the state in prosecuting other criminals or protecting correctional officers from attack.

After Chief Justice Don Beatty suggested the practice might be widespread, the Corrections Department provided Gov. Henry McMaster with a list of 26 additional instances since the start of 2022, seven of which also resulted in the immediate release of prisoners.

We suspected — but didn’t know for sure — that Mr. Price also was not the only inmate to be released in violation of state laws.

As The Post and Courier’s Glenn Smith has discovered, Alberto Romero Lopez got 12 years cut off his sentence last year after the prison agency confirmed that he provided information that led to the arrest of a corrections officer. Mr. Lopez had been sentenced to 30 years for repeatedly shooting a man and kidnapping two women during a 2006 home invasion.

This wasn’t as spectacular as secretly slashing 16 years off the 35-year sentence of a convicted murder for perhaps providing assistance that no judge or prosecutor vetted to make sure a defense attorney’s claims held up to scrutiny. But the way it was handled still was pretty bad: At the very least, Mr. Romero was released in violation of the law requiring victims to be notified before such actions. His release also seems to have violated laws that restrict the use of secret hearings and require that if a judge closes a courtroom, that occurs only after a public hearing where witnesses may argue against it.

Judge Courtney Clyburn Pope’s order didn’t explain why she released Mr. Romero early. But if it was because he had helped the Corrections Department catch a correctional officer who was way too friendly with an inmate, that raises its own questions, since the charges against the officer were dropped.

We are not comforted by assurances from Mr. Romero’s attorney, House Democratic Leader Todd Rutherford, that everything was above board. He also assured us everything was above-board in the Jeroid Price release — which the Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of overturning based on multiple violations of state law and the state constitution. At least some of those same problems were at play here. We also aren’t comforted by Mr. Rutherford’s assurance that “there was nothing out of the ordinary about this case” — which we worry could be true.

We do take comfort in knowing that the Supreme Court’s order should prevent any more such secret releases in the future. But for those that have already occurred, the court should order any records that remain sealed — including those in the Romero case — to be unsealed. That shouldn’t even be controversial in cases such as this one, where the defense attorney said the secrecy was needed while his client was still in prison. He no longer is.

Meantime, the Legislature still has some cleanup work to do: It needs to put some teeth into the victims’ notification law, violations of which the justices said can’t actually be used to change a judge’s decision. Lawmakers need to clarify whether the substantial assistance law trumps a law requiring murderers to serve at least 30 years, as the justices seemed to suggest. And it needs to provide clarity about the standards for proving that assistance actually occurred.

And there’s another troubling aspect of the Romero case that might need legislative intervention: the idea put forward by former Solicitor Strom Thurmond Jr. that the prosecutor plays only a ministerial role in these cases. Mr. Thurmond, who signed the request for a hearing on a sentence reduction, told Mr. Smith that he made no recommendation as to what should happen to Mr. Lopez and that he was “really just the vessel to get” the defense’s request before a judge.

We hope Mr. Thurmond is the only current or former prosecutor who so completely misreads the law as to think the Legislature required a solicitor to sign a request for a hearing as a mere bureaucratic step. To the contrary, our lawmakers expected solicitors to use the same kind of prosecutorial discretion that we empower them and count on them to use every day: here, to act as gatekeeper. The law expects prosecutors to decide whether they believe prisoners in fact provided enough assistance to outweigh a judge’s decision about how long they should remain locked up.

If the solicitor doesn’t think the inmate deserves to be released early, the Legislature said, a judge can’t even consider the defense request; the inmate simply will not be released early. That strikes us as an essential check on the process — particularly since a legislator who plays an outsized role in judges’ tenure on the bench has turned these early release requests into a cottage industry.

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