The texts kept coming, over 50 of them, from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the evening.

The 26-year-old woman sending them asked, then practically begged, for heroin. She said she had money.

Shannon McGuigan, then 32, was receiving the texts. She had some heroin and she owed someone else money.

McGuigan said the woman was looking for a dealer they bought from, who McGuigan knew. He was incarcerated, so McGuigan agreed to sell to the woman.

Ill serve you, McGuigan texted. They made the exchange of a personal-use amount of heroin in a neighborhood of Pemberton Township, where both women lived.

Two days later, on May 30, 2017, the family of the 26-year-old found her face down in her bed, dead of an apparent overdose. Police were called.

A year later, in June 2018, a detective arrested McGuigan on charges related to the womans death the main one, strict liability of a drug induced death after linking her as the source of the heroin, which contained fentanyl. The Burlington County Prosecutors Office issued a press release, titled, Pemberton Drug Dealer Charged With Homicide in Death of Customer.

Earlier this year, a jury convicted McGuigan at trial, and a judge sentenced her in April to 12 years in state prison. Along the way the prosecutors office announced each development, her arrest, indictment, conviction and sentence, with a press release declaring her a drug dealer.

But McGuigan was no drug dealer, not in the way people would think, she says.

She was a user herself whod struggled with addiction and recovery for much of her adult life.

She had no prior criminal record, and held a full-time job for 13 years, in human services for the New Jersey State Police at the agencys headquarters in Ewing, until the day of her arrest.

Tragically and ironically, she was trying to help the 26-year-old woman who died, McGuigan told NJ Advance Media from a jail cell this summer.

She said she was sick, McGuigan said, explaining that sick means the woman was struggling and needed heroin. McGuigan knew what the woman was likely going through. Shed been there many times.

You never think it will happen to you, McGuigan said. All you think about is getting high, and then when youre going to get high again.

I was trying to help her out, McGuigan said. She sold her heroin a few times in May 2017.

On a different day, McGuigan says it could have been her own parents finding her dead in her bed.

That could just as easily have been me, she said.

Shannon McGuigan in a family photo.

The use of New Jerseys strict liability for drug induced death law is not new, but how its being used as the opioid crisis stretches on is, critics say.

In recent years, its been unjust, unfair, and unevenly applied across the Garden State, they argue.

Defense attorneys and those who study drug issues say it can unfairly target users, or people who, while the law might technically qualify as sellers or dealers, are low on the drug trade totem pole – like those who sell drugs to feed their own habit.

Or, like McGuigan, to score a few bucks.

Convictions often lead to stiff sentences – up to 20 years under certain conditions – for people who they argue dont belong in prison, but in rehab.

Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a senior research analyst at The Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., said convictions often come with public announcements from prosecutors that relay what she termed the, We got the bad guy message.

Its political spectacle, she said, and research shows no evidence that long prison terms reduce overdose deaths.

After an arrest of a dealer or seller, their role will filled by another person, which she said is why authorities should step away from targeting the supply side of illegal drugs. This general approach to handling the crisis is not effective.

There are much more effective solutions in the opioid crisis, Ghandnoosh said, like investment in high-quality, professional treatment.

The continued press by prosecutors to use the law is out-of-touch, research studies on the topic say. Ghandnoosh pointed to ones like, An Overdose Death Is Not Murder: Why Drug-Induced Homicide Laws Are Counterproductive and Inhumane, by the Drug Policy Alliance, or Fair and Just Prosecutions study on the issue, or this University of Utah professors work.

They all make similar arguments, that the use of drug-induced death laws do more harm than good.

Robin Lord, a Trenton-based attorney who has defended strict liability cases, called the strict liability law, a tired tactic.

We have come a long way to understanding addiction differently, with rehabilitation as opposed to punishment, she said. This law is a left over from the war on drugs, which did not work.

Lord said the states Drug Court program was even renamed Recovery Court last year, the latest in a shift of thinking.

This is a band aid on what the real issue is, Lord said of strict liability cases.

And, germane to New Jersey, the strict liability law is not a presence everywhere.

The Burlington prosecutors office led the state in such cases from 2018 through 2021, with 24 defendants charged.

Cape May County charged 22 in that period, followed by Atlantic with 18 and Middlesex with 17. Monmouth and Gloucester also had double digit caseloads, with 11 each.

Some counties, though, charged just one or two cases, and Sussex and Salem charged had none.

Scott Coffina, Burlingtons prosecutor from 2017 until earlier this year, defended the use of the law, especially during his term.

He arrived at the office in 2017 to crushing numbers: 141 overdose deaths that calendar year, versus 83 in 2016. (The state later published the 2017 tally as 149 and 2016 in 96.)

Hed worked in Gov. Chris Christiess administration prior, and was conscious of the evolving access to treatment options for opioid users.

But when you have a 70% increase in fatalities in one year, and these are victims, young people with decades of life ahead of them, this just screams for a response, Coffina, who is now in private practice, said.

He said Burlington was in the midst of an uptick in violent crime, And to me, this law was made for this crisis.

He said the rise of heroin laced with the deadly substance fentanyl obligated him to use any tool at his disposal. Its complete Russian roulette, thats what drug dealings become.

So he made it an announced priority that he communicated to local police departments. I felt it was justified.

The former prosecutor acknowledges some counties do not investigate cases like Burlington did, or others, like in Ocean, where a former prosecutor was also blunt about charging strict liability cases. Or like in Atlantic County, where the prosecutors office has a squad dedicated to such cases.

Not every county, with their narcotics landscape lends itself to these kinds of prosecutions, Coffina said.

This worked for our landscape, he said.

The strict liability law in New Jersey passed the Legislature in 1987 and is commonly seen as a response to the crack epidemic of the 1980s.

Critics believe its aim was to connect drug dealers, high level ones like kingpins, to deaths if needed.

Lord and Coffina agree that the prevalence of cell phones, where drug deals are often consummated, has made it easier to charge the crime. (Coffina, though says they are labor-intensive, warrant-driven investigations nonetheless.)

For years, critics have also attacked the reality the strict liability law lacks criminal intent, that is, that people who sell drugs on any level are not trying to kill people; theyre trying to make money.

Strict liability is probably the worst written criminal offense there is, Lord said. The law is absolutely horrible.

Both seller and buyer are engaging in consensual conduct, the crime is rated first-degree, but its not a violent act, and the suspect is often not present, Lord said.

When a user dies, its met with a a crazy reaction from police and prosecutors by picking on one person.

Lord said she believes it should only be used, and was created for, cases where a real dealer knowingly sells a known toxi batch of drugs, and many people die in a short period of time.

The cases shes handled are not that, theyre $20 drug deals, theyre your neighbors and friends, not kingpins.

These are people that need help, Lord went on. The law is disgusting.

These are sad cases, Lord said.

Theyre also sad for the victims families, Coffina countered. And hes heard the criminal intent argument before, that victims play a role. He echoed words he wrote in a 2018 opinion piece for the Times of Trenton:

Critics of the…law argue the penalty is too harsh when considering that the dealer had no intent to kill the victim, and that the victim bears some responsibility for taking the drugs that resulted in death, he wrote.

The Legislature obviously felt differently when it passed this law in 1987, recognizing that the threat posed by dangerous drugs is significant enough to justify holding dealers accountable. That rationale resonates even louder today, given the toxic mixtures that drug dealers are recklessly peddling on the street, and the callous way they prey upon those struggling with addiction, he wrote.

Coffina said his approach as prosecutor was wholistic.

He instituted compassionate responses, including a straight to treatment program. He reminded that the prosecutors office, while it should offer such programs, You cant just fight with treatment, which really isnt the central mission of law enforcement.

Coffina did hire an assistant prosecutor who has been open about her own struggle and recovery from addiction.

And he said his staffers reviewed every strict liability case carefully, studied the defendant, and gave them opportunities to help themselves by revealing information that would help charge people above them in the drug food chain.

We were aggressive in pushing both sides of this, he said.

He rated their success on everything from Facebook comments on their posts, to other feedback, and feels they have enough anecdotal evidence that we had an impact, that people (had) at least some hesitation in selling drugs.

After Coffinas tenure, the office has continued its use of the strict liability law, a spokesman said, citing crippling statistics of overdose deaths.

We will continue to make addressing this epidemic a priority, as evidenced by the recent investigation with our local and federal law enforcement partners that removed 10,000 fentanyl pills from the street, spokesman Joel Bewley told NJ Advance Media.

When it can be established who supplied the drugs that resulted in a fatal overdose, we will evaluate each case individually to determine whether the Strict Liability for Drug-Induced Death statute should be utilized.

Countywide, Burlington overdoses have been up and down the past few years, but hovering around 150 per year. They were edging down in 2022, with 127 through Oct. 31.

Meanwhile, McGuigan said she sees numerous issues with her case which mirror the critics.

First, shes technically innocent of the crime. (I know everybody says that she said.)

Her point was that the victim in her case died about 30 hours after they met, and police found multiple packets of heroin near her body. (Police reports confirm this.)

Did she buy from anyone else? How can authorities be sure which heroin killed her?

McGuigan was contrite with Pemberton detectives when they called her in for questioning in November 2017. She waived her Miranda rights and described the deal and the dealer the woman was looking for.

This was not something McGuigan did in life, sell drugs, she told NJ Advance Media.

Thinking back, she also is confused by the fact that the victim, McGuigan believes, would have gotten the drugs from someone. She asked me for it, she begged for it, McGuigan said.

McGuigans backstory is familiar, she said. She was in a crash as a teen and had her wisdom teeth pulled, and was prescribed pills for both. She abused them, and her addiction grew at times over the years, eventually moving to heroin.

She was clean for a big chunk of 20s after completing rehab, but she slipped at times. McGuigan said hardly went out to socialize, and preferred to work and just watch TV at home. She lived with her parents her entire life until prison.

When police arrested her in June 2018, she had a small amount of cocaine in her pocket, for which she was charged with possessing.

She went to trial and tried to explain herself on the stand. The jury convicted her of strict liability, a drug dealing charge, and possessing the heroin she sold, and the cocaine.

McGuigans mother, Sue McGuigan, said the police and prosecutors office have been unduly harsh, especially with all the press releases. They act like they got this big time Pemberton drug dealer, and they didnt.

Her lawyer, John B. Brennan, a former prosecutor in the office, did not want to discuss the case at length, but said: The verdict was an unjust verdict.

He shares Lords feeling about the way the strict liability law is currently being applied. Its so over-broad and unfair that it creates injustices, he said.

McGuigan said she had a hard time when Brennan told her prosecutors were going to ask the judge for a 15-year sentence. It was just hard for me to comprehend, 15 years?

When the judge handed down 12, the feeling was so surreal, It was a little bit of relief.

McGuigan has to serve 85% of her sentence under the No Early Release Act, or NERA, which applies mandatory minimums to about 20 crimes, strict liability among them. She is first eligible for parole in 2032.

So was she a drug dealer, as Coffina describes?

Coffina said McGuigans case was just. She made a choice, and there has to be accountability, he said.

McGuigan had a job, was making money, had health insurance and he believes she had a heightened awareness of what of legal consequences of her actions as a State Police civilian employee.

The compassion we have in a case has to be balanced, Coffina said. He said the victims mother was a fierce advocate for her daughter, who Coffina said was obviously driven by her own demons.

The outcome does matter, and this is a predictable outcome, Coffina said. McGuigan has the opportunity to get treatment in prison, and hopefully sustain it.

[Shannon] has the opportunity to enjoy her life at the end of this. The victim does not, Coffina said.

McGuigan over the summer was transferred to a unit of the Edna Mahan state prison for women in Hunterdon County. She calls her mother every day, Sue McGuigan said.

Shannons lost a lot of hair, and shes had to handle the drama of prison life. In general, her spirits are good, her mother said.

Before she left the county jail, McGuigan said she hoped anyone who learns of her story and is struggling with addiction would push forward and get help, saying:

It changes you, and its not worth it.

Shannon McGuigan, in a 2022 N.J. prison photo.

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Kevin Shea may be reached at [email protected].