Pennsylvania's High Court Says Sharing the Drugs That Killed Someone Is Still Homicide

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined Tuesday to create a new legal defense for people accused of handing over the drugs that killed someone, upholding two convictions in a decision that keeps the state at the center of a national argument about whether overdose deaths should be prosecuted as homicides.

The state's drug delivery resulting in death statute carries a maximum sentence of 40 years. Prosecutors filed charges under it more than 680 times between 2021 and 2025, and Pennsylvania is widely described as a national leader in bringing them. The question the court took up was narrow: when two people jointly buy and share drugs and one dies, does the survivor's shared use matter as a defense?

A Broad Reading of 'Delivery'

The majority said no. State law, the justices held, uses a broad definition of "delivery" and "does not differentiate between drug dealers and co-users for purposes of delivery of illegal narcotics." Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, Sallie Updyke Mundy and P. Kevin Brobson joined Justice Daniel McCaffery's opinion. Both cases came from York County and were consolidated for argument, turning on what happens when people "jointly and constructively acquire and use drugs" and whether that entitles a defendant to an acquittal or at least a jury instruction on joint possession.

What makes the ruling unusual is how openly the justices disagreed with the law's logic while enforcing it. McCaffery wrote that the court "cannot ignore the fact that" the proposed defense "makes sense — some believe drug dealers should be punished more harshly than drug users," then closed the door: "Nevertheless, this type of policy determination is for the General Assembly, not the courts."

'The Spirit of the Law' Versus Its Text

Justice David Wecht went further in a concurrence joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd. "The General Assembly does not violate the Constitution when it violates common sense," Wecht wrote. "It is undoubtedly true that the DDRD statute was meant to target drug dealers, not drug users." But, he added, "the spirit of the law is in considerable tension with its text," and "it is the latter that binds us."

The defense bar read the outcome as a public health problem, not only a legal one. "It is unthinkable that joint drug use can be made a homicide," C. Melissa Owen, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told Spotlight PA. "We anticipate this ruling will further discourage individuals from seeking help during an overdose, causing the very harm the law purports to prevent."

That concern is documented rather than speculative: fear of prosecution is one of the reasons bystanders hesitate to call 911 during an overdose, which is why most states enacted Good Samaritan protections. Pennsylvania has one too, and the ruling sits in visible tension with it — though the county district attorney said the conduct in both cases went "well beyond any characterization of a minimal 'sharing' of drugs."

Efforts to narrow the charges have stalled in Harrisburg. Past bills limiting drug delivery resulting in death prosecutions have not advanced, and several measures now pending would give prosecutors more time to file them.

The practical takeaway is unchanged. Pennsylvania's Good Samaritan law still protects a person who calls 911 in good faith during an overdose, and opioid addiction treatment remains the intervention that does not depend on a prosecutor's discretion.