Madison Bernard is the mom of a 15-month-old girl who was found asleep next to a nightstand with straws, burned foil, and white powder. After waking up to her daughter struggling to breathe, she was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, but unfortunately, she didn’t make it and died of fentanyl overdose. Her parents were later on charged with the murder of their daughter, and although they did not plead guilty, parents across the United States are being charged for the death of their children that were all not in their control. This led several states to pass a drug-induced homicide law that allows the victims to press charges against the person who supplied them with drugs if they experience a harmful overdose.
Attorney Carla Rodriguez of Sonoma County District believes,” They need to be held accountable under the law because they allowed harm to come to their children, and they let their drug use and addiction outweigh taking care of their children and keeping their children safe.” By charging the parents with a felon, the supporters of this decision believe that they should be the ones facing the consequences of exposing or allowing their children to have access to the harmful type of drugs for their bad choices that led to their addictions, which directly influenced their children who look up to them. Fentanyl is so dangerous that any touch of the powder of as little as 2 milligrams that comes in contact with their eyes or mouth will kill them instantly. Not only are parents being charged for fentanyl, but any other drugs that aren’t as powerful, such as cocaine, crack, or heroin, can lead to severe illnesses or possibly death. News reports have found that the use of fentanyl and cases of fateful deaths from the drug have grown since the pandemic.
However, there are some cases where the parents have pleaded guilty, such as a Maine woman named Ashley Malloy, who was sentenced to jail for “manslaughter” of her son Karson, who was found sleeping with a blanket with fentanyl traces. Even though many other parents have faced her situation, they did not plead guilty because of the state they lived in, as the laws differ from state to state, some having more consequences than others. Another instance where parents were pleaded guilty and sentenced to jail for 15 years was a couple in San Jose who was charged with the murder of their 18-month-old daughter. Their toddler died of fentanyl and methamphetamine toxicity, which was found to be about a concentration of 74 ng/mL when concentrations as low as 5ng/mL can cause someone to die. As their home was searched, police found fentanyl on the nightstand of the parent’s bedroom with a scraping tool on the desk and one on the rug underneath the toddler’s body. They also found photographic evidence of the couple smoking narcotics near the toddler and leaving these substances inaccessible places where their baby could easily reach them, leading the police to believe if they had been more responsible with their use of drugs, they could have avoided the death of their child.
