A group of Republican senators, including one from Oklahoma, introduced a bill in February to charge fentanyl traffickers and dealers nationwide with felony murder in what Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, called a “simple, common-sense step to help turn the tide and protect our communities”
But, as Mai studied Askins’s file, he saw that the Oklahoma City police officers in that case hadn’t tracked the fatal dose of fentanyl back to a cartel manufacturer, or to a drug trafficker, or to a big-time dealer, or even to the street-level dealer known as “Suge” who had sold the fentanyl to Askins and Drake and whose name Askins had given to the police at the scene. Instead, they arrested and charged only one person, Askins, who had a criminal record of nonviolent drug offenses. His file showed that he had depression, anxiety and PTSD from being raped by a neighbor when he was 9. His current address was listed as “transient,” and he’d told officers that he supported his own addiction by reselling food he found in dumpsters and donating plasma twice each week.
Mai left private practice and took a 40 percent pay cut to become a public defender in his home state because he wanted to work cases like this. He had imagined himself fighting for the underdog, standing and delivering in front of a jury like his idol, Clarence Darrow, whose trial victories helped advance the civil rights movement. But the realities of Mai’s job meant managing 80 or 90 cases at once — small-time copper thefts, drug deals and domestic disputes that typically ended with his clients cutting deals and pleading guilty to lesser charges. In his almost two years as a public defender, he had never once taken a case to trial.
“This is one we’re going to fight,” he told Askins when they met one morning at the county jail. Askins had a bond hearing coming up, and Mai planned to ask the judge to reduce his bond to $50,000 from $250,000 so that Askins could possibly get out of jail while his case continued through the courts.
“They should be treating this more like a misdemeanor drug case,” Mai told him. “It was a traumatic situation, and you acted how I wish I would act if I was in that position.”
“My mind was spinning,” Askins said. “I was just going off instinct.”
“And somehow you drove to the gas station,” Mai said. “You called for help. You gave CPR. You stayed at the scene and tried to save your friend.”
“Murder,” Askins said, still trying to make sense of it. He had met an inmate in jail who admitted to shooting a former roommate and dismembering parts of the body, and he’d pleaded down to a sentence of manslaughter and 10 years in prison.
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