Supreme Court Reverses a 20-Year Mandatory Sentencing Enhancement for Sale of One Gram of Heroin

From [HERE] and [HERE] Yesterday a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court issued an important criminal law ruling in the case of Burrage v. United States by applying the rule of lenity – a rule of statutory construction that resolves ambiguities in the language of a law in favor of the defendant. Reversing the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Court held that to apply the 20-year minimum sentencing enhancement in §841(b)(1)(C) to someone convicted of selling certain substances to a user who then dies, "at least where use of the drug distributed by the defendant is not an independently sufficient cause of the victim’s death or serious bodily injury[,]" the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that "but for" the use of that particular substance, the user of the drug would be alive.

In this case, Mr. Burrage had sold one gram of heroin to someone who, according to toxicology reports introduced at trial, had a cocktail of multiple drugs in his system. The government had secured the now-reversed sentencing enhancement in the lower court through argument and a jury instruction that it is enough under the statute – the plain language of which requires that the "death … result[ed] from the use of such substance" -- to prove that the substance sold by the defendant was a "contributing cause" of the user’s death. The Supreme Court unanimously disagreed. Today’s decision in Burrage v. United States is available here.

The 20 year mandatory sentencing found in § 841 was enacted as part of the "War on Drugs" (war on Non-whites) and mandatory minimums stemming from statutes issued during that time have been criticized [JURIST op-ed]. In December US President Barack Obama [official website] commuted [JURIST report] the sentences of eight inmates currently serving lengthly prison terms for crack cocaine offenses, citing the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA) [text, PDF]. The FSA reduced significant disparities in convictions of drug offenses related to crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Last August US Attorney General Eric Holder [official profile] announced [JURIST report] that the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] should avoid charging low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with no ties to gangs or drug cartels with crimes carrying mandatory minimum sentences. Holder outlined additional reforms as part of his "Smart on Crime" plan [text, PDF] during a speech to the American Bar Association (ABA) [official website].