Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1410_1an2.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

ALITO, J., concurring
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 

proviso actually constitutes an element of dispensing or dis-
tributing a controlled substance.  But it concludes, based on 
a vague four-part test, that the proviso is “sufficiently like
an element in respect to the matter at issue here as to war-
rant similar treatment.”  Ante, at 12.  How many other af-
firmative  defenses  might  warrant  similar  treatment,  the 
Court  does  not  say.  It  leaves  prosecutors,  defense  attor-
neys, and the lower courts in the dark.  I cannot accept this 
cavalier treatment of an important question.

Nor  can  I  accept  the  Court’s  conclusion  that  once  a  de-
fendant produces evidence that his or her conduct was “au-
thorized,” “the Government must prove beyond a reasona-
ble  doubt  that  the  defendant  knowingly  or  intentionally 
acted in an unauthorized manner.”  Ante, at 5.  We did not 
grant certiorari on the question of the burden of proof ap-
plicable  to  authorizations  to  dispense  or  distribute  con-
trolled substances.  No party has briefed this issue, and its 
resolution is not essential to our decision in these cases.  In 
keeping with our normal practice, I would not address this
question.  But because the Court volunteers its own answer, 
I will offer one as well.  As I see it, the text of the CSA does 
not show that Congress intended to deviate from the common-
law rule that the burden of proving “affirmative defenses—
indeed, ‘all . . . circumstances of justification, excuse or al-
leviation’—rest[s]  on  the  defendant.”  Patterson  v.  New 
York,  432  U. S.  197,  202  (1977)  (quoting  4  W.  Blackstone 
Commentaries *201).  And absolutely nothing in the text of 
the  statute  indicates  that  Congress  intended  to  impose  a 
burden on the Government to disprove all assertions of au-
thorization beyond a reasonable doubt. 

I 
A 
As relevant here, §841(a)(1) provides that “except as au-
thorized by this subchapter, it shall be unlawful for any per-