Second Circuit: 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) “Death Results” Requires But-For Causation, Not Proximate Cause

1. Introduction

In United States v. Parks (2d Cir. June 24, 2026), Edward Michael Parks appealed his jury convictions for two counts of kidnapping resulting in death under 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) (Damian Connor and Tamar Lawrence), and one count of witness tampering by killing under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(a)(1)(C) & 1512(a)(3)(A) (Devante Williams), for which the district court imposed three consecutive life sentences.

The appeal raised a legally focused jury-instruction issue with broader doctrinal implications: whether the “death results” language in § 1201(a)(1) requires the Government to prove only but-for causation or also proximate causation (i.e., reasonable foreseeability). Parks also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence on all counts and objected to a supplemental instruction clarifying that the Government need not prove he was the shooter to satisfy the “death results” element.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Second Circuit (Jacobs, Wesley, and Park, JJ.) affirmed. The court held:

  • For § 1201(a)(1), the “death results” element requires proof that the kidnapping was a but-for cause of death, not proof of proximate cause.
  • Even if proximate cause were required, any instructional omission was harmless on these facts because holding victims at gunpoint made death foreseeable.
  • The evidence was sufficient to sustain the kidnapping-resulting-in-death convictions even under Parks’s alternative theory that a third party fired the shots.
  • The supplemental instruction (using “Defendant’s actions” language) did not mislead the jury when read in context and did not violate due process.
  • The evidence was sufficient under Fowler v. United States to show a “reasonable likelihood” the witness would communicate with federal law enforcement, supporting the § 1512 conviction.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1) Statutory causation for “death results” provisions

  • United States v. Felder, 993 F.3d 57 (2d Cir. 2021)
    Role in Parks: This was the opinion’s central interpretive anchor. The district court relied on United States v. Felder to deny Parks’s requested proximate-cause instruction, and the Second Circuit held Felder’s reasoning “applies here.” Felder construed similarly worded “if death results” language in the carjacking statute (18 U.S.C. § 2119(3)) to require actual (but-for) causation, not proximate causation. Parks extends Felder’s logic from carjacking to kidnapping under § 1201(a)(1).
  • Burrage v. United States, 571 U.S. 204 (2014)
    Role in Parks: Cited for the proposition that “death results” language (in a similarly worded statute) imposes a but-for causation requirement and that such enhancements increasing penalty exposure are elements to be found by a jury. Parks uses Burrage to situate “results in death” as primarily a factual causation inquiry, absent textual direction to add foreseeability.
  • United States v. Guillette, 547 F.2d 743 (2d Cir. 1976)
    Role in Parks: Parks invoked Guillette to argue that “if death results” clauses should be read to require proximate cause. The court rejected that move. It treated Guillette as recognizing proximate cause as a sufficient basis of responsibility (particularly where intervening acts might separate conduct and result), not as a command that all “death results” statutes must include foreseeability as an element. Parks also notes Guillette predates modern Supreme Court causation clarification.
  • United States v. Burkholder, 816 F.3d 607 (10th Cir. 2016)
    Role in Parks: Quoted via Felder for two textual/grammatical cues: Congress’s use of “results from” versus “causes,” and the use of passive voice, which signals focus on whether death happened, not on foreseeability.

2) Mens rea and avoiding over-reading additional elements

  • Elonis v. United States, 575 U.S. 723 (2015)
    Role in Parks: Used to support the idea that courts read into statutes “only that mens rea which is necessary to separate wrongful conduct from otherwise innocent conduct.” Parks uses this to argue kidnapping already includes a culpable mental state (willful confinement), reducing the need to graft an additional foreseeability requirement onto the death-results element.
  • Carter v. United States, 530 U.S. 255 (2000)
    Role in Parks: Quoted through Elonis to reinforce the scienter presumption framework.
  • United States v. Krivoi, 80 F.4th 142 (2d Cir. 2023)
    Role in Parks: Cited for the kidnapping mens rea proposition: kidnapping requires “a willful intent ... to confine the victim.” This supports the panel’s view that adding proximate cause is unnecessary to screen out innocent conduct.

3) Elements of kidnapping and “force” as inherent in the offense

  • United States v. Corbett, 750 F.3d 245 (2d Cir. 2014)
    Role in Parks: Provides the standard three elements of kidnapping and is used (via Parks’s argument) to note kidnapping can involve physical or psychological force. The panel responds that even non-physical coercion can create danger, making foreseeability concerns less compelling.
  • United States v. Macklin, 671 F.2d 60 (2d Cir. 1982)
    Role in Parks: Quoted for the proposition that kidnapping, by its nature, entails force—actual or threatened, physical or mental— throughout “taken, held and transported” stages, supporting the court’s characterization of kidnapping as a violent, dangerous crime.

4) Standards of review and instructional error/harmlessness

  • Musacchio v. United States, 577 U.S. 237 (2016) and United States v. Ho, 984 F.3d 191 (2d Cir. 2020)
    Role in Parks: Supply the sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard and emphasize that drawing permissible inferences is the jury’s job.
  • United States v. Landesman, 17 F.4th 298 (2d Cir. 2021), United States v. Alston, 899 F.3d 135 (2d Cir. 2018), and United States v. Aguiar, 737 F.3d 251 (2d Cir. 2013)
    Role in Parks: Define the Rule 33 “manifest injustice” framework and the “sparingly” exercised discretion to grant new trials.
  • United States v. Zheng, 113 F.4th 280 (2d Cir. 2024), United States v. Guldi, 141 F.4th 435 (2d Cir. 2025), and United States v. Raniere, 55 F.4th 354 (2d Cir. 2022)
    Role in Parks: Provide the Second Circuit’s framework for evaluating whether instructions misled the jury and the requirement to read the charge “as a whole.” Guldi also supplies the articulation of plain-error review used for the “actions” wording challenge.
  • United States v. Gomez, 580 F.3d 94 (2d Cir. 2009) and United States v. Silver, 948 F.3d 538 (2d Cir. 2020)
    Role in Parks: Supply the harmless-error approach for omitted-element instructional issues: overwhelming and essentially uncontroverted evidence can render an error harmless; the Government bears the burden to show beyond reasonable doubt the jury would have convicted absent the error.
  • United States v. Capers, 20 F.4th 105 (2d Cir. 2021)
    Role in Parks: Cited for de novo review on sufficiency and on the preserved instructional issue.
  • United States v. Denkberg, 139 F.4th 147 (2d Cir. 2025)
    Role in Parks: Supports the court’s emphasis on context—especially for supplemental instructions—when assessing whether phrasing created a meaningful risk of jury confusion.
  • Dunn v. United States, 442 U.S. 100 (1979)
    Role in Parks: Used to reject the due process “changed theory” argument: Parks had opportunities to be heard on the charges, including supplemental closings after the jury question.
  • United States v. Aiello, 118 F.4th 291 (2d Cir. 2024), cert. denied sub nom. Ciminelli v. United States, 145 S. Ct. 2814 (2025)
    Role in Parks: Cited in a footnote to dispose of spillover arguments once the court found no instructional violation on Counts One and Two.

5) Witness tampering by killing and the federal-communication nexus

  • Fowler v. United States, 563 U.S. 668 (2011)
    Role in Parks: Governs the federal-nexus proof requirement for § 1512(a)(1)(C) when the defendant’s intent is to prevent law enforcement communication generally: the Government must show a “reasonable likelihood” the communication would have been to a federal officer—more than remote, outlandish, or hypothetical, but not necessarily more likely than not. Parks applies Fowler to evidence that the FBI was involved from the day of the murders and that the murders arose from illicit firearm activity.

6) Additional cited authorities supporting “violent crime” framing and § 241 context

  • United States v. Rosa, 11 F.3d 315 (2d Cir. 1993), United States v. Lee, 818 F.2d 1052 (2d Cir. 1987), and United States v. Telesco, 962 F.2d 165 (2d Cir. 1992)
    Role in Parks: These are used to support the court’s description of kidnapping as a paradigmatically violent offense (including in Guidelines/career-offender contexts), reinforcing the panel’s skepticism that foreseeability adds clarity to the “death results” inquiry.
  • United States v. Pacelli, 491 F.2d 1108 (2d Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 826 (1974)
    Role in Parks: Appears in the Guillette discussion to explain that interfering with federal witnesses can implicate constitutional rights protected by 18 U.S.C. § 241.

B. Legal Reasoning

1) The new/clarified rule for § 1201(a)(1): “results” means but-for, not proximate cause

Parks’s core holding is interpretive and textual: § 1201(a)(1) provides heightened punishment “if the death of any person results,” but contains no proximate-cause or “reasonably foreseeable” language. The court treats its own decision in United States v. Felder as establishing a general interpretive rule for “death results” enhancements: absent clear congressional language, courts should read “results” to impose actual (but-for) causation, not a foreseeability-based limitation.

The panel emphasizes several features (imported from Felder and the cross-circuit reasoning Felder adopted):

  • Word choice (“results” vs. “causes”) suggests a factual-occurrence focus rather than an added layer of foreseeability analysis.
  • Passive voice (“if death results”) often signals Congress’s concern with the occurrence of death, not with the mechanism or “why.”
  • Redundancy/confusion risk: for inherently coercive/violent crimes like kidnapping, a foreseeability requirement may add little and confuse jurors, because the offense already involves force or threatened force and is predictably dangerous.
  • Expressio-like inference: Congress knows how to require proximate cause when it wants to; the opinion points to multiple statutes where Congress explicitly used “direct or proximate result.” The absence of that wording in § 1201(a)(1) is treated as significant.

2) Reconciling Guillette

The opinion reframes United States v. Guillette as a case about the minimum required causal connection when intervening actors/events may separate a defendant’s conduct from the death. Guillette held defendants could be liable if their conduct proximately caused death even if not the immediate cause. Parks reads that as expanding liability beyond “direct causation,” not as mandating foreseeability as an additional element in every “death results” statute.

3) Mens rea and “innocent conduct” concerns

The panel also uses Elonis v. United States (and United States v. Krivoi) to argue the underlying kidnapping offense already contains culpability (“willful intent … to confine”). That matters because one common reason to add limiting principles (like heightened mens rea or foreseeability) is to avoid sweeping in innocent conduct. Kidnapping is already “wrongful conduct,” so the court declines to read proximate cause into the enhancement to serve that function.

4) Harmlessness as an alternative ground

Even if proximate cause were required, the court holds any omission was harmless: multiple witnesses testified Parks held the victims at gunpoint and prevented their departure, and “death is certainly foreseeable from holding someone at gunpoint.” Thus, under United States v. Gomez and United States v. Silver, the panel concludes that the evidence on foreseeability/proximate cause was overwhelming.

5) Supplemental instruction and “actions” wording

Parks argued the supplemental instruction improperly allowed the jury to base “death results” on Parks’s “actions” other than kidnapping (e.g., gun trafficking). Applying plain-error review (from United States v. Guldi) and emphasizing contextual reading (from United States v. Denkberg), the court held the instruction—read in the context of the full charge laying out kidnapping’s elements—kept the jury’s focus on kidnapping conduct.

6) Due process and “changed theory” claim

Parks claimed it was unfair to clarify that the Government need not prove Parks was the shooter. The panel rejected this, noting Parks knew from the charging conference the court’s legal view and, critically, Parks was given additional argument time after the jury question, satisfying Dunn v. United States’s notice/opportunity-to-be-heard concerns.

7) Witness tampering by killing: applying Fowler’s “reasonable likelihood”

For Count Three, the court applied Fowler v. United States to the evidence that (i) the FBI was involved from the day of the murders, (ii) the murders arose from illicit firearm sales (a paradigmatic federal investigative interest), and (iii) Parks himself said he killed Williams because he “talked too much.” The panel held the prospect of federal contact was not “remote, outlandish, or simply hypothetical,” and the jury could also infer Williams’s willingness to talk from Parks’s own statements.

C. Impact

1) Doctrinal impact: solidifying a but-for-only approach for § 1201(a)(1)

Parks meaningfully clarifies Second Circuit law: the “death results” enhancement in 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) does not require proximate cause. This aligns kidnapping with the Second Circuit’s approach to the similarly worded carjacking enhancement in United States v. Felder. In practice, the Government need not litigate foreseeability when proving “death results” in § 1201(a)(1) cases, though it must still prove but-for causation beyond a reasonable doubt.

2) Practical impact: liability even where defendant may not be the triggerman

The opinion also reinforces that “death results” can be satisfied even if the defendant did not personally inflict the fatal injury, so long as the defendant’s kidnapping conduct is a but-for cause of death. This matters in multi-actor scenarios and cases where the defense is “someone else did the killing.” Parks suggests such defenses will more often be resolved as factual causation disputes for the jury, rather than as legal “proximate cause” limitations.

3) Witness tampering prosecutions: evidentiary pathways after Fowler

On § 1512(a)(1)(C), Parks illustrates how the Government may meet Fowler without direct proof the victim was about to speak to a specific federal agent: early federal involvement, the federal character of the underlying offense (here, firearms trafficking and a multi-homicide investigation), and defendant’s own statements about silencing a witness can collectively establish “reasonable likelihood.”

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • But-for causation: “But for the defendant’s conduct, the death would not have happened.” It is a necessary-condition test.
  • Proximate causation (foreseeability): A limiting concept asking whether the death was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the conduct, often used to cut off liability when the chain of events becomes too unusual or attenuated.
  • “Death results” enhancement as an element: If “death results” increases the penalty range, it must be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt (the opinion cites Burrage v. United States for this).
  • Rule 29 vs. Rule 33: Rule 29 asks whether evidence was legally sufficient for any rational juror to convict; Rule 33 allows a new trial in extraordinary cases to prevent “manifest injustice,” but is exercised sparingly.
  • Plain error: When an objection was not preserved, the appellant must show a clear, obvious error that affected substantial rights and undermines confidence in the proceeding’s fairness.
  • Fowler “reasonable likelihood”: For federal witness tampering where the intent is to prevent law enforcement contact generally, the Government must show it was reasonably likely the communication would have reached federal officers—more than speculative but not necessarily more probable than not.

5. Conclusion

United States v. Parks establishes (and firmly applies) a key rule in the Second Circuit: for kidnapping under 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1), the “death results” element requires but-for causation, not proximate cause or foreseeability. The decision both simplifies the Government’s burden in § 1201(a)(1) cases and expands the practical significance of factual causation disputes, including cases where the defendant denies being the direct killer. On the witness-tampering count, Parks reinforces the flexibility of Fowler’s “reasonable likelihood” test, showing how federal nexus can be proven through investigative context and defendant statements even without a near-certain federal communication on the record.