KY Supreme Court: Good Samaritan law only applies if callers know overdose happened
The Kentucky Supreme Court says a Good Samaritan law meant to shield drug overdose victims from prosecution does not apply when the bystanders who call for emergency medical assistance don’t realize that an overdose has occurred.
The high court handed down a decision Thursday that narrowed the scope of a law the General Assembly passed in 2015 to provide criminal immunity when someone calls authorities for help with an overdose.
Under Good Samaritan laws, police essentially look the other way if they find drugs or paraphernalia lying around a drug user who needs emergency medical aid, and they don’t file charges. Legislators said they didn’t want Kentuckians continuing to die because they or their friends hesitated to dial 911 for fear of going to jail.
At least 40 states have enacted similar immunity laws.
However, in two separate incidents in Lexington four years ago, bystanders called for help after they saw people passed out in vehicles in public. The people — who were revived — turned out to be drug users whom Lexington police charged with various crimes, including possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia.
Prosecutors said the Good Samaritan law did not apply in these cases because the bystanders did not see the people use drugs, did not know that drug overdoses were involved and therefore did not have reason to believe the unconscious persons were at risk of arrest and prosecution if authorities were summoned.
However, the defendants’ attorney argued that it would be unrealistic to expect bystanders to search someone’s unconscious body and vehicle for evidence of drug use before calling 911 for help. The point of the law was to get help for overdose victims as quickly as possible, the lawyer said.
“Requiring a Good Samaritan to be certain that an overdose was occurring before the exemption would apply would potentially expose both the person overdosing and the Good Samaritan to danger,” attorney Steven Nathan Goens wrote in one of his briefs to the Supreme Court.
Two Fayette Circuit Court judges presiding over the cases split in how to interpret the law, but the Kentucky Court of Appeals sided with prosecutors.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed that the Good Samaritan law should not apply in such cases. Just because someone is passed out in a car does not necessarily mean they have overdosed, and the law requires that the callers know that an overdose has happened and are seeking medical aid for the victim, the court said.
“There are many medical reasons that might cause a person to pass out that have nothing to do with a drug overdose: a drop in blood pressure or blood sugar, a seizure, a stroke, a heart attack, etc.,” Justice Debra Lambert wrote for the unanimous court.
“Without something more to indicate that they had consumed a controlled substance specifically, (one of the bystanders who called 911) could have just as reasonably concluded that the pair were drinking together and were passed due to alcohol consumption,” Lambert said.
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