STATE

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goods determined to be important to national security.

• Empower the President to create supplementary quotas and tariffs to phase out Chinese imports and to institute overriding bans on specific Chinese goods.

• End de minimis treatment for covered nations— including China —and require customs brokers for other de minimis shipments.

The revenue produced, they say, will go towards farmers and manufacturers injured by potential Chinese retaliation, the purchase of key munitions important to a Pacific conflict, and paying down the debt.

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Lawyers in drug trafficking case say million-dollar fine is unconstitutional

RUSSELLVILLE — A pretrial hearing will take place next week in Pope County for a man facing multiple drugrelated charges, including trafficking a controlled substance, specifically fentanyl.

Central to the hearing will be the defense attorney’s challenge to the mandatory $1 million fine imposed by law for cases involving more than one gram of fentanyl, arguing that the penalty is unconstitutional.

Walter Miles, 42, was arrested earlier this year after authorities found him in possession of over a gram of fentanyl, along with other illegal substances. He now faces multiple charges, including trafficking fentanyl, which carries a $1 million fine and a sentence of imprisonment for no less than 25 years and also the possibility of life in prison.

Miles' defense attorney, Michael Kaiser of Lassiter and Cassinelli based in Little Rock, plans to argue that the mandatory fine required for fentanyl cases such as this one is excessive and violates constitutional protections against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment.

'Under Arkansas law, the most serious crimes are capital murder and treason. The next one is trafficking fentanyl. It is more severe in terms of its punishment than murder in the first degree, rape, armed robbery, arson, kidnapping and every other charge in Arkansas,' Kaiser said. 'The proportionality of the severity of this case compared to those having a sterner punishment seems illogical, and it's our contention unconstitutional. Having 1.1 grams of fentanyl is more serious than raping someone and beating them to death.'

Kaiser, is expected to argue that the mandatory fine is not only excessive but also unprecedented in Arkansas law.

Kaiser contends that no other crime in the state imposes such a steep financial penalty, regardless of the defendant’s financial status.

'Arkansas law has no other mandatory fine anywhere in it. It also doesn't have a fine above $15,000 for any other crime. This one has a mandatory million-dollar fine, whether you're a billionaire, whether you're broke or whether you're middle class,' he said. 'If you do get out, [the state] is making sure you will never get out from under this sentence ever. You can't get a fine for murder, you can't get a fine for rape and you can't get a fine for kidnapping. You cannot just get a life sentence for having what amounts to a user quantity of fentanyl, the state is going to make sure you're destitute forever.'

Kaiser said he doesn't deny the danger of fentanyl, acknowledging its role in the current drug crisis. However, he argues that the legal system's response has historically been to over-criminalize new drugs, resulting in ineffective solutions that fail to address the underlying issues.

'There's no question that fentanyl is the latest scourge in our nation's drug crisis, but just like with every other new drug that's come along, the state's first reaction is to overcriminalize it,' Kaiser said.

'Their second thought is to realize they over-criminalized it and that it didn't fix the problem. Then they loosen the laws, and then a new drug comes, and they follow the exact same cycle. It's happened with crack.

It's happened with meth. It's happened with fentanyl. It'll happen with the next one.

What it won't do is fix the problem. What it will do is make sure a lot of poor people die in prison or are financially broken for the remainder of their lives, and likely that will bleed into their children and possibly even grandchildren.'

The prosecution plans to argue that the fine is constitutional.

'This fine is the least of the defendant's worries, but it's it's deemed constitutional until a court of competent jurisdiction says the legislature wasn't acting appropriately when they passed the law,' Prosecuting Attorney for the 5th Judicial District Jeff Phillips said. 'The fine is not grossly disproportionate to the offense,' Phillips said in a brief filed with the court.

'Instead, it is a criminal statute designed to target a deadly drug that is devastating communities across this state.'

Phillips also states in his brief that a defendant's ability to pay the fine under Arkansas Law is based on due process protections and will be considered before they are incarcerated for failure to pay.

'I anticipate it's going to be determined to be constitutional, and that issue may be taken up, but like I said, in the grand scheme of things, this is the least of this defendants concerns,' Phillips said.

The pretrial hearing will be held at 9 a.m. on Thursday, October 11 in the Pope County Courthouse.