Suicide attempt turns into 15-year jail sentence

A local attorney says Florida's mandatory minimum laws are too strict and are keeping our jails and prisons overcrowded.

They are some of the toughest sentencings in the nation for convictions of drug dealing. It mandates strict prison terms-- with no time off for good behavior.

Todd Hannigan took a handful of his mother's vicodin in November with the intention of killing himself. Having already taken half a dozen pills, he was arrested for drinking beer at a park. Police found 31 pills.

Hannigan was charged with drug trafficking and was labeled a dealer.

"I've never sold drugs in my life," Hannigan said. "I understand I am guilty of possession but not trafficking." Hannigan said he had no intention to sell the pills.

Because the charge is drug trafficking, legally, the rest is a done deal.

Florida's laws state no matter what, the sentence is a 15 year minimum because of the amount of hydrocodone Hannigan had.

"This is basically a death sentence. This is throwing my life away I wont have nothing to look forward to when I get out. I wont have any kind of future. I wont have any kind of retirement saved up. Whose going to hire somebody at 60 years old?" Hannigan said.

"He's not pumping it into society like rat poison to children. It was an adult decision made to take his life and it had nothing to do with peddling or trafficking," said Hannigan's public defender Robert Power. 

Power tried to get the charge lowered to possession, that way Hannigan could have entered a drug rehabilitation program for his addiction to alcohol and prescription pills and depression.

Power said minimum mandatory sentences are too broad and has a hard time believing this case is what legislators had in mind when they gave prosecutors the power to hand down drug charges. 

"This is not what they did in committee and everywhere it wasn't were going to get the Todd Hannigans of the world," Power said. 

News 13 asked State Attorney Lawson Lamar's office why it chose drug trafficking for Hannigan. A spokesman said they won't talk about this case or about how they make decision out of concern anything they say could be used as evidence in an appeal.

Hannigan will be 57 years old when he gets out of prison.