The “BUT FOR” Clause

He was an easy target for law enforcement; a young 25-year old man with a long history of drug abuse, but not as that of a dealer.

Our Client admitted seeing his friend shortly before his death, but denied selling or giving him any drugs, specifically fentanyl.

We looked beyond the police report to focus on proving that an "intervening cause"—a separate drug transaction—was the actual source of the tragedy. While law enforcement stopped at the text messages, we analyzed the deceased’s mobile device data and discovered a critical 75-minute window after he left our client. GPS records proved the deceased traveled to a South Dallas In-N-Out and then visited a residence identified by our team as a high-volume narcotics distribution point. We provided the defense attorney with evidence that the deceased made a second, independent purchase at this South Dallas location. By mapping these coordinates and timestamps, we demonstrated that the lethal dose was likely obtained during this second trip, not from the earlier social encounter with our client. We presented our findings to the attorney, who used this evidence to argue that the State could not prove our client was the "but for" cause of death. Our investigation established that the chain of causation was broken by the deceased’s independent actions in South Dallas.

Confronted with the digital evidence and the timeline we reconstructed, the prosecution’s theory of "last contact" collapsed. The case was dismissed.