Opinion ID: 613517
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: United States v. De La Cruz, 514 F.3d 121 (1st Cir. 2008)

Text: In De La Cruz, the First Circuit also concluded that § 841(b)(1)(A)'s enhanced penalty does not require the government to prove foreseeability. De La Cruz, 514 F.3d at 138. A jury convicted defendant De La Cruz of conspiracy to distribute heroin and possession with intent to distribute heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846. Id. at 125. De La Cruz sold heroin to Tracy, who sold some of that heroin to Flynn, who sold some to Wallace. Wallace later died in his home of heroin use. Id. at 126. At trial, the district court instructed the jury that it: [M]ust find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Wallace ingested heroin, that this heroin was a but for cause of Wallace's death, and that this heroin was distributed as part of the conspiracy charged in Count One and passed through Defendant's hands as part of the distribution charged in Count Two. Id. at 137. On appeal, De La Cruz argued that the jury should have been instructed that, before finding him eligible for the enhanced penalty, it had to find that Wallace's death was foreseeable to him. Id. at 136. Rejecting De La Cruz's claim, the First Circuit noted that [n]othing in the language of the statute suggests that a death must be foreseeable before the enhanced penalty provision applies. Id. at 137. Instead, [w]hat is required under the death-enhancing statute is that the government prove cause-in-fact, that is, that the decedent's death was caused in fact by his or her use of drugs that were distributed either by the defendant himself or by others in a conspiracy of which the defendant was a part. Id. at 138. In De La Cruz's case, the district court properly instructed the jury about the required proof of cause-in-fact, and-following the court's instructions-the jury specifically found that Wallace died as a result of ingesting heroin that was distributed during the course of the charged offenses by Defendant [De La Cruz] to Wallace through Tracy and Flynn. Id. ; see United States v. Hatfield, 591 F.3d 945, 947-48 (7th Cir.2010) (discussing different types of causation and noting the parties agree that the statutory term `results from' required the government to prove that ingestion of the defendants' drugs was a `but for' cause of the deaths and the bodily injury and [t]he death or injury need not have been foreseeable). [14]