core issue for the poor is whether or not the government legally insufficiently proved that the answer to special question thompson's distribution of heroin caused serious bodily injury to mr myers whether that was legally sufficient and whether and argument isn't about the jury charged about whether or not there was legally sufficient evidence to prove the but for causation and proximate cause here you honor i would ask the court to consider a  chain along a series of events that occurred the but for cause this is not a knowledge issue or an attempt to shoe i understand that your honor that was are a when and if there's testimony not only from mason but i believe there's a doctor in new york doctor who said that it was this heroin which really it was heroin that caused her serious injury that's correct your honor the hypothetical to illustrate my point though on this issue is myers calls in the overdose so my list ration to the court is if you took the same scenario and you had thompson selling a handgun to mason and you had rico selling a handgun to mason if mason then picked up thompson's handgun and shot and killed amber myers i don't think we would we would say that it was but for cause that mr thompson  that shooting and killing to occur it is it is simply the actions of mason that ultimately cost if the court extends but for cost every chain of events then you have to consider a hypothetical like someone going to the doctor getting a prescription filled prescription or getting a prescription getting a picture until the pharmacy picking it up selling heidrick that hydrocodone prescription to another person that person overdosing on a but fo causation as broad as the government would propose the doctor or the pharmacist everybody along the line would be about for cause because but for their individual actions they could not have it could not have gotten to where  got and so i believe that it's too broad of a position to step back and say that thompson could be liable under a but for cause scenario i believe the court should limit  the one of the home run here you know it could be said that thompson's actions were a contributing cause but in birds the court says contributing cause is not enough not in a criminal case not when the standard is beyond reasonable doubt even if the court found that there was a time enough distribution that as you reference or the mixture or that there was a doctor that testified that heroin did cause serious bodily injury and that if you if you carefully examine that record a doctor's testimony is very limited it doesn't even establish that he has  experience in education sufficient really to give an expert opinion in addition the there's a in the in the record there's multiple use of multiple drugs  about for cause of this overdose the i don't believe that that would be sufficient as well as you you combine it with the fact that this sole supporting evidence for the fact that this scuse me thompson's heroin was mason's testimony mason spent approximately i think it's ten pages of the of the record talking about his criminal history his incentives to li however the we have asserted that the evidence is insufficient because the government hasn't proven but for cause and the government had had not proven proximate cause we believe those are necessary things d and discussing proximate cause certainly if this core signs that proximate cause applies in this case the evidence is certainly insufficient because there was no clear why or why is a question of proximate cause in the in the case that if you're standing in falling on well your honor i don't believe that it's one or the other i think that it could be both that there's both but for causation and proximate cause that it was both the but for action but for this having occurred reversed you know and so the nd issue wasn't need to be reached but it kind of in its own right you know says that both can occur and there's even a little blurb from the supreme court that generally but for the proximate cause and but for cause or required in criminal cases and just deciding from some secondary source and in the opinion the certainly the court doesn't reach the question the court granted the issue on whether or not the jury there was jury charge or kind of kind of like what you're talking about and here are issues a little different  to whether the evidence was sufficient to prove proximate cause we believe that proximate cause should have been required to been proven you know this court again didn't reach the issue basically that that the actions if but for cause are required if proximate cause or is required then we think that both are met here and so but it if a if a person was injured in an accident caused by a defendant then that would be but for cause and that person goes to the hospital and the hospital explodes from a gas leak that's still bad for cause  required to be shown in this case and they weren't additionally moved to the last point before i run out of time we believe that the motion for new trial was wrongfully denied because the  court given the opportunity to weigh the credibility of the witnesses we believe clearly erred because that testimony that supported the enhancement here was was soley based upon mason's testimony only which the government impeached itself in ten pages of testimony blacking out all of his criminal convictions lying out all of his incentives to testify his recommendation for lenient sentenc is agreement not to be prosecuted for the very same crime that they were using thompson and so we believe that the trial court error in not granting the motion for a new trial reasonable jury could easily that the victim suffered serious bodily injury on october th two thousand and seventy from the use of heroin and that the heroin that was in her system that day came from the fact both myers and mason testified that meyer cell phone is what arrange for the transaction the transaction was executed in front of meyer's house with myers watching from the front porch a jury to be easily found that he distributed you're going to meyers people who later shared those drugs with the victim and in that house the defendant manufactured matt who others later shared with the victim despite the defendant specific in the late statements that the victim should have nothing to from right not causation or anything kind of tighter than that right all those essentially required that the defendant be in the distribution chain he distributed drive someone to use that drug and resulted in  based on the evidence a reasonable jury very easily found that it was the hero and that was not the other drugs that was about the cause of her injuries he also argues that there was insufficient evidence that it was his heroin as opposed to another suppliers testimony trying to proximate cause he argues that there is insufficient evidence of proximate cause and as he noted that he didn't ask for it in the jury instructions but every circuit to address this issue has held that there is no jaw and also based on numerous other statutes where congress was explicit and opined proximate cause the injured as well as the back to congress has subsequently mended the controlled substances act but made courts that have sided against thomas on this issue and largely taking it taken a policy approach let's much like what's been before by the government in their brief in oral arguments today that drugs are just