It was last week that Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo that encourages federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in cases that involve “extremely large quantities of drugs.
The provision, 18 U.S.C. § 3591(b)(1), lays out quantities of drugs that could lead to capital punishment even if there is no accompanying violent crime.
“The Supreme Court has never upheld the death penalty for a crime that did not involve death,” said Tamar Todd, director of the Office of Legal Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance.
The federal capital punishment for large quantities of marijuana is 60,000 kilograms, or 60,000 plants. This is scary because there are several state-licensed cannabis businesses that cultivate this many plants or more.
According to experts however, it’s unlikely that individuals trafficking any drug, or state-legal marijuana, could be tried or sentenced under the quantity provision of federal law.
