Lоrenzo Roundtree, Petitioner - Appellant v. United States of America, Respondent - Appellee
No. 16-3298
United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit
March 22, 2018
Appeal from United States District Court for thе Northern District of Iowa - Cedar Rapids
Submitted: December 15, 2017
Filed: March 22, 2018
Before WOLLMAN, LOKEN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
In 2007, a jury convicted Lorenzo Roundtree of distributing heroin, resulting in death, after a prior felony drug conviction. The district court1 sentenced Roundtree to life imprisonment, the sentence mandated by
After our remand, the Supreme Court decided Burrage v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 881, 892 (2014), holding that, if “the drug distributed by the defendant is not an independently sufficient cause of the victim‘s death or serious bodily injury, a defеndant cannot be held liable under the penalty enhancement of
The evidence at trial established that Roundtree sold heroin to Nick Howe and Michelle Eash who then met Wеs Gridley and picked up the victim, C.H., at a bar. Howe and Eash shared the heroin purchased from Roundtree with Gridley and the intoxicated C.H. Shortly after using the hеroin, C.H. became unresponsive and died. The medical examiner, Dr. Julia Goodin, testified that C.H. died as a result of alcohol and drug intoxication. C.H.‘s lungs were filled with fluid, a common result of opiate overdose, which deprives the body of oxygen.
The jury was instructed that, if it found Roundtree guilty of distributing heroin, it must decide whether the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt -
that the heroin distributed by the defendant contributed to C.H.‘s death. In other words . . . was a factоr that resulted in the death of C.H. Although the heroin distributed by the defendant need not be the primary cause of C.H.‘s death, it must at least have played a part in the death of C.H.2
The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that Roundtree distributed heroin that resulted in the death of C.H. The parties agree that Burrage requires рroof meeting a heightened standard of causation, rather than the “contributing factor” standard used to instruct the jury that convicted Roundtree. In this § 2255 motiоn, Roundtree argues that his life sentence should be vacated for resentencing because his sentence was enhanced on the basis of аn erroneous jury instruction.
At trial, Roundtree did not object to the jury instruction at issue, nor did he raise this instruction issue on direct appeal. Thus, the issue was prоcedurally defaulted, which means that, to obtain collateral relief, Roundtree “must clear a significantly higher hurdle than would exist on direct appeal.” United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 166 (1982). “[T]o obtain collateral relief based on trial errors to which no contemporaneous objection was made, [Roundtree] must show both (1) ‘cause’ excusing his double procedural default,
The government relied on Dr. Goodin‘s testimony to prove that C.H.‘s death “result[ed] from the use of” heroin Roundtree distributed. On direct examination, Dr. Goodin testified that alcohol and morphine -- the metabolized form of heroin -- worked “synergistically” to depress C.H.‘s respiratory system, causing her to list “both acute drug, meaning morphine, and ethanol intoxication as a cause of death.” Dr. Goodin opined that the percent of alcohol found in C.H.‘s bloodstream, 0.16%, was not enough to cause death “if that were the only thing that was in his blood.” On cross-exam, Dr. Goodin оpined that the alcohol and morphine “probably worked together,” but “the morphine alone [could] have caused his death.”
We agreе with the district court that, based on Dr. Goodin‘s uncontradicted testimony, the incorrect jury instruction did not result in prejudice excusing Roundtree‘s procedurаl default under Burrage. In the first place, Dr. Goodin‘s opinion that “the morphine alone [could] have caused [C.H.‘s] death” would permit a reasonable jury to find that Roundtree‘s offense warranted the
where A shoots B, who is hit and dies, we can say that A [actually] caused B‘s death, since but for A‘s conduct B would not have died. The same conclusion follows if the predicate act combines with other factors to producе the result, so long as the other factors alone would not have done so -- if, so to speak, it was the straw that broke the camel‘s back. Thus, if pоison is administered to a man debilitated by multiple diseases, it is a but-for cause of his death even if those diseases played a part in his demise, so long as, without the incremental effect of the poison, he would have lived.
Id. at 888 (quotation omitted). Dr. Goodin established at a minimum that, without the incremental еffect of heroin distributed by Roundtree, C.H. would have lived.
We conclude that no prejudice excusing procedural default resulted from the district