Seventh Circuit: USA v. Donald S. Harden

Sufficient evidence to establish death from the drugs sold where timeline suggests proximate consumption, despite statements in the record to the contrary regarding the substance's toxicity.

Sentencing enhancement for death requires merely actual causation, not proof of proximate cause; conspiracy provision does not imply reasonable forseeability.

Court's exclusion of testimony about another source for drugs was harmless error and not an abuse of discretion, as it might have tended to confuse.

Giving a timestamped convenience store surveillance photograph of the deft to the jury during deliberations did not warrant a mistrial.

Prosecution statements in closing and rebuttal closing (saying that the deft knew the present batch of heroin to be fatal, as opposed to the previous batch; saying that deft furnished drugs on both days as opposed to just one) don't warrant reversal, sufficiently cured ("if what the lawyers said is different than the evidence that you remember, the evidence is what counts.")

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2018/D06-20/C:17-1270:J:Flaum:aut:T:fnOp:N:2173545:S:0