WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PROOF BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT - OF DRUG CONSPIRACIES, OVERT ACTS, AND UNITED-STATES V SHABANI

In United States v. Shabani, the Supreme Court held that, in order to establish that a defendant violated the federal drug conspiracy statut e, ''the government need not prove the commission of any overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.'' In this note, Kevin Jon Heller argue s that Shabani's elimination of the overt act requirement from drug co nspiracy cases is fundamentally irreconcilable with the principle, fun damental to American criminal law, that a defendant cannot be convicte d of a crime ''except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fa ct necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.'' The f undamental effect of Shabani, Heller notes, is to encourage the govern ment to attempt to convict defendants in drug conspiracy cases solely through coconspirator testimony and coconspirator hearsay; as Heller d emonstrates, however, such direct evidence is simply not reliable enou gh to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant conspired to vi olate federal drug laws. Heller thus concludes that the Supreme Court' s decision in Shabani was incorrect, and that in all drug conspiracy c ases the government should be required to prove, through circumstantia l evidence, that the defendant committed at least one overt act in fur therance of the conspiracy.