Alexandra Capelouto (Courtesy Capelouto family)

Matt Capelouto keeps his daughter’s ashes in a sky blue urn. It bears a bright yellow sun and a pale night moon, a replica of the cosmic yin/yang mural she painted in her room.

It was in 2019, a few days before Christmas, when Alexandra Capelouto took what she thought was a Percocet. She died from fentanyl poisoning in her bedroom shortly afterward. She was 20.

Since then, Capelouto has taken the urn, Alexandra’s photo and his burning outrage all over the state, trying to convince lawmakers that selling pills packed with fentanyl is not drug dealing – it’s murder. And they must do something about it.

The road to hell, some say, is paved with good intentions. Tone-deaf to the public’s growing outrage and willfully blind to the proposal’s DUI-inspired structure – we’ll get to the details in a minute – lawmakers in Sacramento killed Alexandra’s Law over and over again.

It would pack prisons again with black and brown people, they argued. It would ensnare unwitting, low-level addicts who had no idea that the pills they sold to finance their own addictions contained deadly fentanyl. They didn’t mean to kill anyone, so a warning that any future drug-sale-related death could lead to a murder charge would be patently unfair!

Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, tried hard to convince them otherwise. His version of Alexandra’s Law included compromises to make it more targeted, gentler on underage offenders, focused on dealers rather than users. But still, the bill died.

Matt Capelouto walks with the urn of his daughter Alexandra in Riverside (File photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)

What California lawmakers got when Proposition 36 passed in November is a veritable boxing of the ears. Tucked into the The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act – and largely overlooked because of Prop. 36’s emphasis on smash-and-grab crime and reinstating drug-related arrests and penalties – was an Alexandra’s Law that wasn’t trying to compromise for anybody.

This Alexandra’s Law includes a host of dangerous drugs, in addition to fentanyl, for the “next-time-could-mean-murder-charges” warning for convicted dealers. Prop. 36 passed with 68.4% of the vote. On Wednesday, Dec. 18, it becomes the law of the land.

“Alex told her mom two days before she died that she was going to do something to save lives, but she didn’t know what it would be yet,” Capelouto said.

Five years later, with her name on a new law, he knows what it is. “The goal is not ruining lives, but changing lives,” he said.

The brick wall

Matt Capelouto holds the urn of his daughter Alexandra (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)

Contrary to legislators’ (willful) misunderstanding, no version of Alexandra’s Law could have charged first-time convicted drug dealers with murder.

Instead, each version of Alexandra’s Law would have simply required courts to issue warnings to convicted drug dealers that their fake Percocet or Oxycontin or Xanax pills contain fentanyl and can kill. And if they continued selling drugs, and someone died from a fentanyl overdose in the future as a result, they could be prosecuted for murder.

The warning is fashioned after the one drunk drivers receive after a first offense. If there’s a second offense, and someone dies, that warning allows prosecutors to argue that the offender had “an abandoned and malignant heart” and exhibited “a wanton disregard for life,” setting the stage for a homicide charge.

State Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. (File photo: Robert Schlie, Getty Images)

Legislators, however, refused to accept that logical parallel during a hearing on Umberg’s version of Alexandra’s Law last year. Senate Bill 44 died. Again.

“I’m appalled to be standing here once again expressing disagreement with a public safety committee that refuses, absolutely refuses, to do something, anything, about the fentanyl epidemic tearing our communities apart,” he said in March 2023.

The first time they rejected Alexandra’s Law, Capelouto was stunned. The second time, he was angry. The third time, he was disgusted.

Screenshot of Matt Capelouto and other parents who lost children to fentanyl poisoning after the failure of ‘Alexandra’s Law’ in 2023

“What all of us want here is to protect people from the enduring, the never-ending, pain of someone being killed by a drug dealer selling poison,” Capelouto said back then. “And they won’t do it. They won’t even pass a bill that contains a warning — a freaking warning.”

Pushing past the brick wall

Umberg was not the first lawmaker to hit Sacramento’s brick wall of good intentions.

Then-Sen. Pat Bates tried myriad fentanyl crackdowns. Then-Sen. Melissa Melendez introduced several versions of Alexandra’s Law. Lawmakers flat-out refused to increase criminal penalties, saying there was no appetite to return to the “War on Drugs.”

As if there were no middle ground between hyper-criminalization and virtually no criminalization at all.

Tom Umberg (Photo courtesy of campaign)

It seemed that if anyone could get it done, it would be Umberg – a Democrat who was former deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Attorney and career prosecutor. Umberg worked with the parents who paraded portraits of their dead children before legislators, begging them to take action. He mourned with them when they hit the impenetrable brick wall.

That’s when activists turned to the ballot box. There, they overwhelmingly convinced their fellow citizens to embrace stricter drug and theft laws. They pushed way past the legislature’s impenetrable brick wall.

The Alexandra’s Law that takes effect on Wednesday is broader than the SB 44 version. “It’s more expansive in that it includes other hard drugs, while our bill was mostly focused on fentanyl,” Umberg said. “More dealers could potentially be put on notice.”

But it’s not just focused on being a “tougher on crime” initiative – it puts significant emphasis on drug treatment for offenders. “It’s a long time coming,” Umberg said.

Turning tables

When Proposition 47 passed a decade ago, it was full of good intentions. Drug addicts should get treatment, not prison, it said. Counting small crimes as third-strike felonies and thus putting people behind bars for life was cruel, it said.

But the effective drug treatment and rehabilitation programs needed to make that approach work never materialized. Addicts didn’t really get treatment or prison. The little crimes that shouldn’t have put folks behind bars for life could be repeated with virtual impunity, so long as the stolen stuff was worth less than $950.

What followed was a tremendous plunge in drug arrests and a tremendous increase in drug overdose deaths and homelessness. And it all happened just as deadly fentanyl swept onto the scene.

“Fentanyl is the most dangerous drug that our nation has ever seen,” the text of Prop. 36 reads. “One kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fentanyl provides enough of the drug … to kill 500,000 people.”

Fentanyl overdose deaths dipped nationwide in 2023 from the high of the year before. But California bucked that trend, and fentanyl deaths increased.

In 2023, there were 6,850 fentanyl deaths in the Golden State, up from 6,473 the year before, according to state data.

Deaths dipped in Los Angeles County (1,463 fentanyl deaths in 2023, down from 1,535 the prior year) and in Orange County (517 in 2023, down from 563 the prior year).

Deaths climbed slightly in Riverside County (520 in 2023, up from 510 the year before) and more dramatically in San Bernardino County (401 in 2023, up from 359 the year before).

Someone sold, or shared, each of those 6,850 fentanyl-laced pills or powders. As of Wednesday, they – and those who are convicted of selling the cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other hard drugs that result in death – will get this admonition from the court:

“You are hereby advised that it is extremely dangerous and deadly to human life to illicitly manufacture, distribute, sell, furnish, administer, or give away any drugs in any form, including real or counterfeit drugs or pills. You can kill someone by engaging in this conduct. All drugs and counterfeit pills are dangerous to human life. These substances alone, or mixed, kill human beings in very small doses. If you illicitly manufacture, distribute, sell, furnish, administer, or give away any real or counterfeit drugs or pills, and that conduct results in the death of a human being, you could be charged with homicide, up to and including the crime of murder.”

Forward

A photo of Alexandra Capelouto, who died from a fentanyl overdose, sits next to an urn holding her ashes in Temecula, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Some counties are already on board. Orange, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco and Placer counties have been prosecuting dealers who sold drugs that killed people for years, on theories of implied malice.

Soon, Alexandra’s Law will put a new tool on the toolbelt.

There was a celebratory undercurrent when law enforcement types gathered at a Prop. 36 implementation meeting in Sacramento on Thursday, Dec. 12. Capelouto was there.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect,” he said. “The mood, the vibe, was very optimistic. We have a real opportunity to go from arguably being one of the worst states for drug-related crimes and homelessness to leading the nation and curbing this epidemic.”

District attorneys from throughout the state were there, and they spent a lot of time in the weeds – how exactly are we going to pay for the drug treatment Prop. 36 mandates? they wondered. What about the quality of treatment? To that end, Umberg, who was also at the meeting, has introduced Senate Bill 28, to set standards for drug court treatment programs.

Screenshot from “Dead on Arrival,” a documentary/public safety announcement warning of fentanyl’s dangers. Clockwise from top: Amy Neville holding a photo of her son Alexander, who died at 14; Steve Filson with daughter Jessica, who died at 29; Jaime Puerta with son Daniel, who died at 16; and Matt Capelouto with daughter Alexandra, who died at 20.

This time of year should be hard for Capelouto. It has been five years since Alexandra died. But he is hopeful. The man who provided her the pills, Brandon Michael McDowell, was indicted on federal charges of distributing fentanyl resulting in death almost two years to the day after her death. Alexandra’s Law will take effect almost five years later to the day. The Capeloutos have won a $5.8 million civil judgment against the dealer, which the court ruled couldn’t be shed via bankruptcy. They may never collect, but the principle is now enshrined in law.

It’s going to be a busy 2025. Capelouto is working on a missive to all California law enforcement agencies, reminding them that Alexandra’s Law can do no good unless there are investigations, arrests and prosecutions.

“I want to get as many people admonished as possible,” he said. “The goal is not to charge a bunch of people with murder. The goal is to turn their lives around – to get them out of the drug trade and off of drugs. Not to ruin their lives, but to change their lives.”

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