« Lawyers and prisoners using Yelp to review lock-ups | Main | A notable DIG (with lots of explanation) from SCOTUS concerning indigent defense »
April 29, 2013
SCOTUS grants cert on federal criminal law causation issues
The Supreme Court, despite having one of it members on the DL, gets a new week started with some notable criminal justice action. First and foremost, it has granted review, via this order list, in Burrage v. United States (12-7515). Here is how the SCOTUSblog folks describes the questions on which cert was granted in Burrage:The way these issues matter in Burrage can be figured out from the Eighth Circuit decision from last year, which can be accessed at this link. And, thanks to the SCOTUSblog folks, now the cert petition can be accessed at this link.First, whether the crime of distributing drugs causing death is a strict liability crime without a cause requirement.
Second, whether a person can be convicted of that crime under jury instructions which allow a conviction when the heroin contributed to death but was not the sole cause of the death.
April 29, 2013 at 10:12 AM | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451574769e2019101a4a238970c
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference SCOTUS grants cert on federal criminal law causation issues:
Comments
7th Cir. addresses the issue here:
http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2013/D07-03/C:10-2176:J:Williams:aut:T:fnOp:N:1163150:S:0
No strict liability, rather "a district court
must make specific factual findings to determine whether each defendant's
relevant conduct encompasses the distribution chain that cause a victim's
death."
Posted by: Brian Fahl | Jul 5, 2013 1:16:36 PM
