12/31/2023
At the office working late tonight and came across the following while researching case law, I couldn't help but think back on many of the trials I've had this year, even if they were not drug related, I felt like the stiffening of requirements for prosecutors has decreased significantly and the ability or desire to understand the jury process in society has diminished to the point they don't even take the time to deliberate in most cases, nothing like citizens of our county used to.
Last week, the Supreme Court heard two important criminal law cases involving drugs, both of which fit with a larger theme of clarifying what prosecutors must prove before they can successfully convict a defendant of various federal offenses.
The first case involves an appeal by Marcus Burrage, a man from Iowa who was convicted of distributing he**in that led to the death of one of his customers. The other case, of Justus Rosemond, concerns the manās federal conviction in Utah for aiding and abetting the use of a firearm during drug trafficking. Both men were ultimately convicted and have had their convictions upheld on appeal, with each having been sentenced to more than a decade in prison.
In both cases the defendants appealed their long prison stays. In the case of Burrage, he has argued that prosecutors must show that the he**in he sold was more than just one of several possible causes of death. During his trial, the prosecutors had experts testify that the he**in was a contributing factor in the manās death as he had also ingested several other drugs prior to his demise. Burrage claims that this fact is legally problematic to the prosecutorās case because it shows that they failed to definitively link Burrageās he**in with the victimās death.
During oral argument, several justices expressed dismay that the government has been given so much latitude in prosecuting defendants for such crimes. The law says that defendants face a minimum 20-year sentence if ādeath or serious bodily injuryā results from the sale of he**in. The problem in Burrageās case is that while death did occur following the sale of he**in, there was absolutely no evidence put forward by prosecutors to demonstrate that the he**in was what caused the victimās death.
In Rosemondās case, the justices heard about how he was found guilty of four charges related to a shooting that took place in Utah back in 2007 following a botched drug deal. Rosemondās defense attorneys argued that prosecutors should have been required to show that their client took some steps to encourage the use of the firearm that was ultimately discharged during the encounter before he could be convicted of āaiding and abetting.ā During his initial trial there was never any evidence put forward to conclude whether it was Rosemond or his accomplice that had acted as the shooter.
Several justices, notably Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said that Rosemondās 10-year prison sentence seemed a ābit muchā given that his involvement was never fully fleshed out and that his participation in the underlying crime only resulted in a four-year sentence.
Given some of the unhappiness noted among the justices with the lower court decisions criminal defense attorneys are optimistic that the cases could lead to a stiffening of requirements for prosecutors.š¤š¤
