On February 24, 2017, Brian Anthony Davis was sentenced to twenty years in prison for heroin trafficking. Davis, a Detroit native, would drive to Cincinnati and then take a taxi to Lexington in order to avoid detection. On eight separate occasions over a two-month period, Davis sold large quantities of heroin to police confidential informants, totaling $20,010 in sales for 133 grams of heroin – over 1,300 “hits”. Each undercover buy was videotaped. Davis was charged with eight counts of Trafficking in a Controlled Substance First Degree, each count of which carries a potential penalty of five to ten years in prison. Prosecutors recommended the maximum sentence allowed under the law.

Davis entered an open guilty plea, asking the Court to set the punishment. However, Judge Goodwine followed the recommendation of the Commonwealth and imposed the maximum ten years on each count, lamenting on the record Davis’s choice to spread poison in the community.

By law, Davis’s sentence is capped at twenty years. However, under a 2015 law stiffening penalties for heroin trafficking, Davis will not be eligible for shock probation, parole, or any other form of early release until he serves at least fifty percent of his sentence, or ten years.

Davis has no prior criminal record in Kentucky but three prior felony convictions in Michigan. Great work by the Kentucky State Police and prosecutor Kathy Phillips.