Whether defendants charged with crimes involving Schedule I opioids can be constitutionally treated differently for punitive purposes from defendants charged with the same crimes involving Schedule II opioids

QUESTION PRESENTED The West Virginia legislature, like many state legislatures, has determined in light of the opioid crisis that crimes involving prescription opioids like oxycodone should be treated for punitive purposes the same as crimes involving other opioids like heroin. In this case, however, Petitioner Travis Ray Norwood was sentenced to life imprisonment under West Virginia’s recidivist statue, a determination upheld by the West Virginia Supreme Court, while just a few weeks earlier, that same court had ruled that such a sentence was impermissible for an almost identically situated defendant. The only difference, acknowledged by the West Virginia Supreme Court, was that Mr. Norwood was convicted of an offense involving heroin, while the other defendant, Lane, was convicted of the very same offense involving Oxycodone. The decision below deepens a substantial divide, strongly implicating constitutional equal protection and due process principles, between jurisdictions that treat heroin and other opioids the same and those that treat them differently. It presents an especially stark example of differential treatment that affects perhaps millions of defendants. The question presented is: Whether, and under what circumstances, can defendants charged with crimes involving Schedule I opioids such as heroin be constitutionally treated differently for punitive purposes from defendants charged with the same crimes involving Schedule II opioids such as oxycodone.