Opinion ID: 761705
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: 1 On July 24, 1997, a jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania found the defendant, Melvin Robinson, guilty of conspiring to distribute heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 contrary to 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(C). After conducting a hearing, the district court sentenced Robinson to the mandatory 20-year minimum term required by 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) (section 841(b)(1)(C)) when death or serious bodily injury results from the use of the substance the defendant was convicted of distributing. 2 On appeal, Robinson does not challenge the jury's finding of guilt. Thus, he does not argue that the evidence did not support a finding that he conspired to distribute heroin. Instead, he argues that venue was improper, and he disputes the district court's imposition of the 20-year mandatory minimum sentence. Robinson contends in particular that the Western District of Pennsylvania was an improper venue because the jury may have convicted him for his participation in a conspiracy in Ohio without finding that he or any co-conspirator committed an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy in the Western District of Pennsylvania. He also argues that section 841(b)(1)(C) requires a 20-year mandatory minimum only if a court finds that the distribution of the substance was in the common law sense the proximate cause of death or serious bodily injury. Accordingly, even though Robinson acknowledges that a user of the heroin he supplied died from its use, he challenges the sentence because the district court did not make a finding that his conduct was a proximate cause of the user's death. 3 The district court rejected Robinson's challenge to venue in a motion for judgment of acquittal after discharge of jury. At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, the district court found that Bettina Allison died of a heroin overdose from heroin that Robinson delivered to Ronald Bungar, who in turn delivered it to Allison and her boyfriend, Michael Minchoff. Thus, the court found that the 20-year mandatory minimum sentence was required. 4 We conclude that Robinson waived his objection to venue by failing to raise the issue before the jury reached a verdict and that in any event venue was proper. We further conclude that Congress did not intend the phrase if death or serious bodily harm results from the use of such substance in section 841(b)(1)(C) to require a showing that the defendant's distribution of the substance in a commonlaw sense proximately caused a death. Moreover, we hold that the court's well-supported findings show that there was a sufficient nexus between the substance and the death to require the imposition of the mandatory minimum sentence. In the circumstances, we will affirm. 1