Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

Since Oklahoma banned the unregulated sale of pseudoephedrine in 2004, the availability of methamphetamine declined for a while. Now it’s coming back.  Last year, 743 meth labs were discovered, and this year is on track to exceed that at 300 labs seized to date.  Most of the labs were of the one-pot lab variety, also called “shake-and-bake” process of cooking or concocting meth.  Most of them have been located in Northeast part of the state or around the Tulsa area.

Last May, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control found one one-pot lab in Oklahoma City, while 23 were discovered in Tulsa.  The ingredients are cheap: one 20-ounce bottle of water, pseudoephedrine, camp fuel, chemical ice packs and some other easily-obtained materials are all it takes to make some meth with this method.  Recipes can be found online, along with step-by-step videos explaining how to do it.

So far this year, the state’s Medical Examiner has identified 26 deaths associated with meth, from overdoses of meth to burns from accidents in the cooking process.  Nathan Knapp of Luther was one of those, burned with third-degree burns from an accidental fire and later died.  No chemists are needed to try this process, no laboratory, and they usually yield only enough for the cook’s own addiction.  But sometimes several people will contribute pseudoephedrine to share in the product.

In the year before the regulation of pseudoephedrine went into effect, the number of labs exceeded 1200.  The number shrank by 90% until the one-pot labs started springing up in 2008.  Mexican cartels brought their product to Oklahoma to meet the demand with ice, a crystallized, smokable meth.  Last month, agents arrested one Albert Gomez-Gomez, whom they claim is a member of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, here to establish an operation to rival the established Juarez Cartel.

The OBNDD claims 20% of the meth consumed in Oklahoma comes from Mexico, brought overland on the highways.  The agency also claims to have b locked 54,349 sales of pseudoephedrine since enactment of the law last November that requires a would-be purchaser to provide his date of birth and Oklahoma driver’s license.  They claim that prevents those previously convicted of meth-related crimes from purchasing pseudoephedrine for up to 10 years.  They are still pushing to make pseudoephedrine a prescription drug.

Ingestion of meth triggers release of dopamine, a neurochemical in the brain.  Meth causes high amounts of dopamine to collect in the brain, causing a rush of euphoria.  It makes the user wanting more.  Too much dopamine in the brain causes schizophrenia, a condition characterized by delusions, hallucinations and bizarre behavior.  Too little pseudoephedrine causes Parkinson’s disease and affects motor areas of the brain.

A meth addict will do whatever he can to get more.  Well known is the addictive aspect of meth, psychologically, of course, but also physiologically and neurologically, such that, once use of meth is stopped, the user should have medical supervision.  That’s for those lucky enough to quit.

Former federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives agent Brandon McFadden is in jail, having pled guilty to conspiracy to a drug conspiracy and reportedly telling a federal grand jury how he and Tulsa Police Officers broke the law with him.  Ryan Logsdon, the informant McFadden and Police Officer Jeff Henderson used to convict father and daughter Larry Wayne Barnes and Larita Barnes, recanted his testimony, resulting in the Barnese’s release from prison.  Henderson in on paid leave, waiting to be indicted.

Now more names are coming out, people who have been released from wrongful convictions and Tulsa police officers.  Bobby Wayne Hadley, serving a 20-year sentence for a drug conviction is expected to be released from federal prison.  The reason is stated in a petition filed in U.S. District Court in  Tulsa.  The petition states that an informant, said she lied about a fabricated drug buy and that was coached by two Tulsa police officers.

Rochelle Martin swore in an affidavit that Tulsa police officers Jeff Henderson and Bill Yelton told her to testify falsely that drugs were being sold at Bobby Wayne Hadley’s house. “My false testimony was solicited by Jeff Henderson, who was at the time a Tulsa police officer,” she stated in an affidavit.  “Jeff Henderson and Bill Yelton [another police officer] coached me on what they wanted me to say to the judge.  They drove me to the hearing together and told me to testify that I had been to Bobby Haley’s home and his salvage yard and that I had been present during drug transactions at those places.”

Haley would be the fourth inmate released from the revelations of this grand jury.  Besides the two Barneses, Demarco Deon Williams has been released from federal prison.  Fred Allen Shields had his federal conviction vacated.  The petition with Rochelle Martin’s affidavit is being considered by U.S. District Judge Terence Kern.  Neither Henderson, Yelton or John K. Gray, another Tulsa police officer implicated, has been charged with anything.  But that is not unusual because the federal process is slow and goes as wide as it can, rolling up everyone it can.  McFadden has reportedly implicated at least Henderson, while Henderson has been taking lie detector tests and holding press conferences to tell about it. His legal bills are being paid by the Fraternal Order of Police.

The Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner lost its accreditation in July, 2009, from the National Association of Medical Examiners.  In June, 2008, Dr. Jeffery Gorton, the chief medical examiner, announced he planned to quit performing autopsies in Tulsa.  Legislators from Tulsa objected, and he resigned.   An employee in the Tulsa office who was in charge of petty cash and checks was discovered to have a felony conviction and promptly resigned.  Then the chief investigator, Kevin Rowland, resigned last March, claiming the reason for his resignation was job stress.  Four months later in July, however, he was indicted in Tulsa County District Court for sexual battery and harassment.

Tom Jordan, long-time employee and former deputy director of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was hired a couple of months ago as chief administrative officer of the Medical Examiner’s office.  Then, a new chief medical director, Dr. Collie Trant, was hired as chief medical examiner in . Those two did not get along, as illustrated by the fact that Tom Jordan informed the board that Trant was a “liar.”  The Oklahoma Board of Medicolegal Investigations then fired Trent on February 5th after nine months on the job. The board gave reason for the dismissal, and Trant has filed suit to get his job back.  Trant claims he was fired when he presented evidence of employee misconduct to the board.

Last month was busy month at the medical examiner’s office with other events.  The governor ordered an investigation into the office.  The board hired another acting chief medical examiner, Dr. Eric Duvall, but he promptly resigned.  Citing financial irregularities, leaders of both houses of the legislature asked for a special audit of the medical examiner’s office, and Chief Administrative Officer Tom Jordan then fired the medical examiner’s long-time budget director, Steve Slater. The board is still looking for a chief medical examiner.

Governor Brad Henry has urged the Medical Examiner’s office be merged into the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to save money.  Speaker of the Oklahoma House estimates it will save $5.3 million annually with that merger and the merger of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs also into the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. However, Representative Randy Merrill, chairman of the house public safety and judiciary appropriations subcommittee, proposes that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner be moved to the University of Central Oklahoma campus, where the agency can lease a facility built to specification but also maintain its autonomy. This contrasts with a previous push by some to make the agency part of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

This recognition of the importance of autonomy for the medical examiner’s office is surprising.  It is also vital, as any Oklahoma criminal defense lawyer can tell you.  The National Research Council of the National Academics of Science, Engineering and  Medicine’s recently published report on the state of forensic science in the United States cites many reasons why the medical examiner’s office should not be part of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

That report even urged the establishment of a wholly independent federal agency to address the problems with the current system of forensic science to govern and improve the forensic science community. There is also a need for institutional independence of public forensic laboratories, which the National Research Council found to have a prosecutorial bias.

In times of fiscal want, such as Oklahoma now finds itself, it is difficult to justify any expenditure except the very cheapest.  It is understandable the force to merge the medical examiner’s office into the State Bureau of Investigation.  But without an independent medical examiner, we can expect medical findings to follow the dictates of “law enforcement.”   The lessons of the fiasco with our former medical examiner, Joyce Gilcrest would be lost.

To the horror of the “zero-tolerance-for-drug” people, the Republic of Mexico has decided to be lenient with those caught with small amounts of drugs.  The new laws allow up to about four joints of marijuana for personal use and about one-half gram of cocaine, which translates into about four “lines” of cocaine or half the weight of a paperclip.  The limits for heroin and methamphetamine are about half the size of a pencil eraser, for LSD about enough to make a few grains of salt.

Oklahomans must even show identification to purchase some cold medications at a pharmacy because those medications contain ingredients used to manufacture methamphetamine.  Previously such cold medicines were purchasable over the counter.  No more.  And some credit this tightened policy with a significant drop in the number of meth labs making methamphetamine in Oklahoma.

“That’s just a reckless policy to have,” said Mark Woodward spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics about the new Mexican policy.  It takes away a huge deterrent away from someone using drugs.”  No surprise that this agency is completely against backing up one inch in the “War on Drugs.”

Are we winning the “War on Drugs?”  Most criminal defense lawyers in Oklahoma would be skeptical.  I guess the argument to continue the “War on Drugs” is that the drug situation would be even worse if we ever let up, if we ever stop prosecuting to the maximum against any use of any drugs at any time in any place no matter what.  That is one reason the United States allows those in serious, genuine pain to suffer so much, unlike European governments, because “drugs” are medically indicated to address pain and “drugs” are seen in the United States as inherently evil and criminally tainted, something to prosecute rather than to use as a medical tool to alleviate suffering.

The new Mexican laws do not make it strictly legal to possess the enumerated small quantities of drugs, but such users arrested face drug treatment instead of jail, so long as no violence is involved.

About 90-95 per cent of the illegal drugs entering the United States come across the Mexican border.  That is why drug enforcers in the United States worry about the more permissive law in Mexico.  “I think it’s going to increase the work of our customs agents,” Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson said.  Law enforcement commonly develop a prosecution for large amounts of drug distribution or trafficking from witnesses prosecuted for possession of small quantities.  Without the arrests for smaller amounts, the thinking goes, the potential for larger prosecutions diminishes.  Whether those arrested for the smaller quantities possess the smaller amounts for personal use or not, law enforcement will lose the leverage over them to reach up the distribution ladder without the threat of jail on the smaller fish.

The new law allowing possession of smaller amounts in Mexico is intended to concentrate on catching and prosecuting the big dealers rather than the smaller possessors of drugs.  Mexican President Felipe Calderon reportedly hopes the new law will help with the increasing drug addiction in Mexico.

Mexico has seen a doubling in drug addiction in six years to 307,000, according to a Mexican government study.  Meanwhile drug use in the United States has remained fairly constant at around 10 million from 2002 to 2007, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.   The number of Mexicans who have tried drugs, which is not the same as “drug use” and certainly not “drug addiction”, rose to 4.5 million.  Mexico has a population roughly one-third that of the United States.