Burrage v. United States, No. 12-7515; U.S. Supreme Court; opinion by Scalia, J.; concurrence by Ginsburg, J.; decided January 27, 2014. On certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Longtime drug user Banka died following an extended binge that included using heroin purchased from petitioner Burrage. Burrage pleaded not guilty to a superseding indictment alleging, inter alia, that he had unlawfully distributed heroin and that “death…resulted from the use of th[at] substance”—thus subjecting Burrage to a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence under the penalty enhancement provision of the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C). After medical experts testified at trial that Banka might have died even if he had not taken the heroin, Burrage moved for a judgment of acquittal, arguing that Banka’s death could only “result from” heroin use if there was evidence that heroin was a but-for cause of death. The court denied the motion and, as relevant here, instructed the jury that the government only had to prove that heroin was a contributing cause of death. The jury convicted Burrage, and the court sentenced him to 20 years. In affirming, the Eighth Circuit upheld the district court’s jury instruction.
