Volkman v. United States

• Decision Date: 20 October 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13-8827.,13-8827.
• Parties: Paul H. VOLKMAN v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

574 U.S. 955

135 S.Ct. 13

190 L.Ed.2d 286

Paul H. VOLKMAN

v.UNITED STATES.

No. 13-8827.

Supreme Court of United States.

October 20, 2014.

A jury convicted petitioner, a medical doctor, of four counts of unlawful distribution of a controlled substance leading to death. He was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for those four deaths. Without the benefit of Burrage v. United States, 571 U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 881, 187 L.Ed.2d 715 (2014), the Sixth Circuit upheld the jury's verdict. Burrage holds that "at least where use of the drug distributed by the defendant is not an independently sufficient cause of the victim's death," conviction is improper "unless such use is a but-for cause of the death or injury." Id., at ___, 134 S.Ct., at 892. But-for causation exists where the controlled substance "combines with other factors to produce" death, so long as death would have not occurred "without the incremental effect" of the controlled substance. Id., at ___, 134 S.Ct., at 888. Because the Sixth Circuit did not focus on but-for causation, I join the Court's order to vacate and remand.

I write separately, however, to highlight the nature of petitioner's burden going forward. Petitioner concedes that even "[w]ithout having the benefit of this Court's Burrage opinion, the district court nonetheless gave the jury a `but-for' causation instruction." Pet. for Cert. 21. Even on petitioner's theory, therefore, the question is whether the Sixth Circuit should have "set aside the jury's verdict on the ground of insufficient evidence." Ibid. As petitioner acknowledges, this means that he can prevail only by showing that no rational trier of fact could have found, as the jury did here, "that death would not have occurred in these individuals but for the use of the oxycodone prescribed." Ibid. (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979)).

The jury reached its verdict after a 35-day trial. See 736 F.3d 1013, 1019 (C.A.6 2013). During that trial jurors learned much about the deaths of petitioner's patients. For instance, petitioner prescribed one opiate (oxycodone) and two other drugs (diazepam and alprazolam) to Steven Craig Hieneman. Id., at 1027. Hieneman "died twelve hours" later and was "found dead with the very drugs the doctor prescribed." Id., at 1027-1028. The jury also heard from a deputy coroner that "Hieneman died an opiate-induced death." Id., at 1027. The question on remand is whether evidence of this sort, if credited,...