Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-18-03568/USCOURTS-ca6-18-03568-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Delante L. Lunn
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 19a0464n.06

No. 18-3568

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )

)

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE

) UNITED STATES DISTRICT

) COURT FOR THE NORTHERN

v. ) DISTRICT OF OHIO

)

DELANTE L. LUNN, ) OPINION

)

Defendant-Appellant. )

BEFORE: NORRIS, CLAY, and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.

ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge. A jury convicted defendant Delante Lunn of selling 

a mixture of heroin and fentanyl to Shanee Dowler who died of an overdose not long after making 

the purchase. Her death eventually led to the return of an indictment charging defendant with two 

counts of drug trafficking, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and three counts of using a “communication 

facility” in furtherance of that trafficking, 21 U.S.C. § 843(b). The trafficking count that involved 

Ms. Dowler included an enhanced penalty provision requiring the jury to find beyond a reasonable 

doubt that the drugs she received from defendant “resulted in” her death. 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C).

Prior to trial defendant pleaded guilty to one count of drug trafficking and one count of 

using a communication device. These charges stemmed from a controlled purchase of heroin from 

defendant by a confidential informant as part of the subsequent investigation into Ms. Dowler’s 

death. 

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 1
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

2

On appeal, defendant focuses on the trafficking count that involved Ms. Dowler (Count 1), 

which carried a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years’ imprisonment because of the 

sentencing enhancement. Specifically, he raises five assignments of error: 1) whether the district 

court improperly instructed the jury with respect to the penalty enhancement included in Count 1; 

2) whether constitutionally sufficient evidence supported a guilty verdict with respect to that 

enhancement; 3) whether the district court erred when it permitted the introduction of evidence 

related to the controlled purchase of heroin from defendant by a confidential informant even 

though defendant had already pleaded guilty to that charge; 4) whether the district court erred by 

allowing testimony from a former heroin addict about the defendant; and 5) whether trial counsel 

rendered ineffective assistance by failing to obtain the services of a qualified expert to testify about 

the cause of Ms. Dowler’s death.

I.

In his opening statement, government counsel characterized Ms. Dowler’s death as 

“another statistic in an epidemic that has taken over Northeast Ohio.” The testimony at trial 

supports that assessment; although tragic, Dowler’s death fits a familiar pattern. At the time of her 

overdose, she was a 25 year-old recovering heroin addict who was attending an outpatient 

treatment program after a heroin overdose in July 2015. In January 2016, she moved into a home 

with Roma Black and her companion, Thomas Ellick, as well as Black’s adult daughter and son. 

According to Black, she thought of Dowler as a daughter. 

Despite her progress in recovery, Dowler’s path had not been slip-free. In February, a 

month after moving in with Black, Dowler admitted that “she was doing Xanax.” Black warned 

her, “You know, that leads up to other things for you and you need to be clean from that in this 

house.” Dowler promised that she “wouldn’t do it anymore” and Black believed her. 

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 2
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

3

Despite this assurance, on the evening of Wednesday, February 17, Dowler told Black that 

she was going to see a friend named Gus, a name used by defendant. When Black entered the 

kitchen the next morning, she encountered Dowler who was “extremely out of it” and drinking a 

beer. Dowler admitted being drunk and that she had taken Xanax. When Black scolded her, Dowler 

replied, “I’m sorry Ma, I won’t do it again.”

Later that day Dowler arranged for her step-sister, Brianna Roberston, to pick her up. 

Although she told the others in the house that the pair were going to a substance abuse meeting, 

they were back in less than an hour. Both Black and her daughter, Heather Nelson, who also lived 

in the home, testified that they knew Dowler had not attended a meeting because she was home 

too quickly. 

Where did Dowler and Robertson go instead of to a meeting? At trial Robertson testified 

that she had talked to Dowler on the phone around nine that morning. Dowler mentioned that she 

had recently met a man named Gus at a bar. By comparing Facebook friends, they eventually 

realized that they both knew Robertson. According to Robertson’s trial testimony, Dowler told her 

that she and Gus had spent the night at his house. He “got her high and they had sexual relations.”

According to Robertson, this was “the first time I heard that [Dowler] was using drugs 

again.” Dowler asked Robertson to give her a ride that afternoon to purchase Xanax. Robertson 

agreed and took her teenage cousin with her. They picked Dowler up who instructed Robertson to 

drive to Gus’s house. On their way, Dowler asked Robertson to send Gus a message asking him 

for the “same thing” that he had given her the night before. Robertson recalled that Dowler “also 

snorted a Xanax off of a CD case in my back seat” during the drive. 

When they arrived, Gus was sitting in his car. Dowler joined him in the front seat. After 

three or four minutes, she returned to Robertson’s car. According to Robertson, “She asked me to 

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 3
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

4

turn on the light so she could see what she was doing. And when I did that, that’s when I seen what 

she had. And it was what I assumed to be heroin at the time.” Robertson then drove Dowler home.

According to Heather Nelson, Dowler “seemed fine” when she first returned but began to 

act “really funny” around midnight. Nelson helped her into bed at 2 a.m. The next morning Nelson 

saw her again; Dowler was in the kitchen looking for some missing money. Nelson’s brother, 

Bobby, who also lived in the house, “told her to take her drunk butt to bed.” Later that morning 

Black discovered Dowler in her bed unresponsive. She called 911 but EMS arrived too late to 

revive her. 

During a search of the bedroom the police found a “torn-off corner of a plastic baggie” 

near Dowler’s body. According to Sergeant Vincent Ligas of the Elyria, Ohio police force, it 

contained a mixture of heroin and fentanyl. Other drugs, including two more Xanax pills and 

heroin, were found in Dowler’s bedroom. The results of the forensic toxicology tests and blood 

samples taken from Dowler after her death will be discussed in conjunction with the arguments 

concerning causation. Suffice it to say here that even defendant’s witness, pharmacist Robert 

Bello, conceded at trial that Dowler could have died from a mixed drug overdose. 

As mentioned earlier, defendant pleaded guilty to one count of narcotics trafficking, 21 

U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and one count of using a communication device in furtherance of that 

trafficking, 21 U.S.C. § 843(b), prior to trial. He proceeded to trial on the remaining counts. A jury 

returned a guilty verdict on the second trafficking count, which included the penalty enhancement, 

as well as a second § 843(b) charge. The government dismissed the third § 843(b) count. 

The district court sentenced defendant to 300 months of incarceration to be followed by 

three years of supervised release. This appeal followed.

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 4
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

5

II.

We now turn to the assignments of error raised by defendant.

1: Contested Jury Instruction

The Statute

The sentencing enhancement at the heart of defendant’s appeal provides that when 

someone sells specified illegal drugs to a person and “death or serious bodily injury results from 

the use of such substance,” then the offender “shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not 

less than twenty years or more than life.” 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C).

Standard of Review

We review challenges to jury instructions for an abuse of discretion. United States v. 

Mitchell, 681 F.3d 867, 876 (6th Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). Where, as here, counsel objects to 

the trial court’s rejection of a proposed instruction, an abuse of discretion occurs when “(1) the 

proposed instruction is substantially correct; (2) the proposed instruction is not substantially 

covered by other delivered charges; and (3) the failure to give the instruction impaired the 

defendant’s theory of the case.” United States v. Henderson, 626 F.3d 326, 342 (6th Cir. 2010) 

(quoting United States v. Triana, 468 F.3d 308, 315 (6th Cir. 2006)).

The Instruction

The district court instructed the jury as follows:

In order for you to find for the Government on this question, the 

Government must prove the additional element that the Defendant’s conduct 

resulted in death. In order to establish that the drugs distributed by the Defendant 

resulted in a death of the victim, the Government must prove that the victim died 

as a consequence of her use of the drugs that the Defendant distributed on or around 

the dates alleged in the indictment.

This means that the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt 

that, but for the use of the drugs that the Defendant distributed, the victim would 

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 5
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

6

not have died. But-for causation exists where the use of the controlled substance 

combines with other factors to produce death. And death would not have occurred 

without the incremental effect of the controlled substance.

The Government is not required to prove that the—that the Defendant 

intended to cause the death of the victim. Or that her death was foreseeable by the 

Defendant or by others.

Again, you must be convinced that the Government has proved this 

additional element beyond a reasonable doubt in order to find that the death resulted 

from the use of heroin and fentanyl distributed by the Defendant. If you are 

convinced that the Government has proved this, say so by answering yes to the 

related question on the verdict form. If you have a reasonable doubt about this 

element, then you must answer no to the related question on the verdict form.

Defense counsel objected to the “but-for” language of the instruction. 

The jury form with respect to the enhancement read as follows:

Question 1(a): With respect to Count 1, do you unanimously find that the 

government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that death resulted from the use of 

heroin and fentanyl distributed by the Defendant, Delante L. Lunn?

Arguments of the Parties

The parties agree that the key case governing the resolution of this issue is Burrage v. 

United States, 571 U.S. 204 (2014). In Burrage the deceased overdosed on a combination of drugs, 

including one gram of heroin purchased from the defendant, Marcus Burrage. Two medical experts 

testified at trial. One of them, a forensic toxicologist, determined that multiple drugs were present 

in the deceased’s system at the time of death. Id. at 207. However, he could not say whether the 

deceased “would have lived had he not taken the heroin.” Id. The other medical expert came to a 

similar conclusion and “could not say whether [the deceased] would have lived had he not taken 

the heroin, but observed that [his] death would have been very less likely.” Id. (quotation omitted). 

The trial court instructed the jury that the government must prove “that the heroin distributed by 

the Defendant was a contributing cause of . . . death.” Id. at 208.

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 6
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

7

After noting that the sentencing enhancement at issue represented an element that must be 

submitted to a jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt, the Court narrowed the issue to “whether 

the use of heroin was the actual cause of [the decedent’s] death in the sense that § 841(b)(1)(C) 

requires.” Id. at 210. The Court then offered the following analysis:

The law has long considered causation a hybrid concept, consisting of two 

constituent parts: actual cause and legal cause. H. Hart & A. Honore, Causation in 

the Law 104 (1959). When a crime requires “not merely conduct but also a specified 

result of conduct,” a defendant generally may not be convicted unless his conduct 

is “both (1) the actual cause, and (2) the ‘legal’ cause (often called the ‘proximate 

cause’) of the result.” 1 W. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 6.4(a), pp. 464–

466 (2d ed. 2003) (hereinafter LaFave); see also ALI, Model Penal Code § 2.03, p. 

25 (1985). Those two categories roughly coincide with the two questions on which 

we granted certiorari. We find it necessary to decide only the first: whether the use 

of heroin was the actual cause of . . . death in the sense that § 841(b)(1)(C) requires.

. . . .

“[W]here 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.” LaFave 467–468 (italics 

omitted). The same conclusion follows if the predicate act combines with other 

factors to produce 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 poison 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. 

This but-for requirement is part of the common understanding of cause. 

Consider a baseball game in which the visiting team’s leadoff batter hits a home 

run in the top of the first inning. If the visiting team goes on to win by a score of 

1 to 0, every person competent in the English language and familiar with the 

American pastime would agree that the victory resulted from the home run. This is 

so because it is natural to say that one event is the outcome or consequence of 

another when the former would not have occurred but for the latter. It is beside the 

point that the victory also resulted from a host of other necessary causes, such as 

skillful pitching, the coach’s decision to put the leadoff batter in the lineup, and the 

league’s decision to schedule the game. By contrast, it makes little sense to say that 

an event resulted from or was the outcome of some earlier action if the action 

merely played a nonessential contributing role in producing the event. If the visiting 

team wound up winning 5 to 2 rather than 1 to 0, one would be surprised to read in 

the sports page that the victory resulted from the leadoff batter’s early, nondispositive home run.

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 7
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

8

Where there is no textual or contextual indication to the contrary, courts 

regularly read phrases like “results from” to require but-for causality. 

Burrage, 571 U.S. at 210-12 (citations omitted). 

After examining the text of the enhancement, the Court reached the following conclusion:

We hold that, at least where use of the drug distributed by the defendant is 

not an independently sufficient cause of the victim’s death or serious bodily injury, 

a defendant cannot be liable under the penalty enhancement provision of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 841(b)(1)(C) unless such use is a but-for cause of the death or injury.

Id. at 218.

As already mentioned, defense counsel below lodged an objection based upon the court’s 

inclusion of “but-for” language in the instruction, which is precisely what the Court approved in 

Burrage. On appeal, counsel concedes that the Court endorsed a “but-for” analysis in Burrage, 

and instead focuses on the fact that the instruction in question included this language:

But for causation exists where the use of the controlled substance combines with 

other factors to produce death. And death would not have occurred without the 

incremental effect of the controlled substance.

Counsel directs us to United States v. Volkman, a case that this court decided on remand in light 

of Burrage. 797 F.3d 377 (6th Cir. 2015). Although we affirmed the application of the 

enhancement, counsel argues that Volkman stands for the proposition that the court’s “without the 

incremental effect” language in the jury instruction was misleading because it was not included in 

the Volkman instruction. Id. at 392-93. However, in affirming the sentencing enhancement, we 

reasoned as follows:

[B]ut-for causation exists where a particular controlled substance—here, 

oxycodone—“combines with other factors”—here, inter alia, diazepam and 

alprazolmam—to result in death. Burrage, 134 S. Ct. at 888. The Government 

presented sufficient oxycodone-specific evidence for a rational jury to find that, 

“without the incremental effect” of the oxycodone, [the victim] would not have 

died. Id.

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 8
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

9

Id. at 395. Despite defendant’s reliance upon it, Volkman is clearly unhelpful to her position. 

Another case relied upon by counsel is equally unpersuasive. United States v. Smith, 656 F.App’x 

70, 74 (6th Cir. 2016) (citing without the “incremental effect” language of Volkman).

As the language from the cases cited above makes clear, the jury instruction as given passes 

muster. The incremental effect language is simply another way of saying that the distributed drug 

“was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” resulting in death. Burrage, 571 U.S. at 211.

2: Sufficiency of the Evidence

Defendant also contends that the evidence produced by the government at trial was 

insufficient to support the jury’s verdict beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to the sentencing 

enhancement. When faced with this contention, we ask “whether, after viewing the evidence in the 

light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential 

elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979).

Dr. Frank Miller, the Chief Deputy Coroner of Lorain County requested a Drug Abuse 

Panel. It indicated that Ms. Dowler had benzodiazepines, in this case Alprazolam or Xanax, in her 

system. Fentanyl was also detected at a 3.3 nanogram per milliliter level, which Dr. Miller testified 

“is known to be a lethal dose.” He summarized his verdict as to the cause of death as “a mixed 

drug overdose, including heroin fentanyl and benzodiazepines. Other significant conditions 

included a history of substance abuse.” His direct testimony concluded with this exchange:

Q. What is your opinion as to why Shanee Dowler passed?

A. That she died from acute intoxication by the combined effects of fentanyl 

heroin and Alprazolam. And as I said before, it’s heroin because she has sixmonoacetylmorphine. The drugs next to her [nightstand] are heroin and fentanyl, 

and that is what’s in her blood as well. And so that was my opinion, that she died 

of a drug overdose, and those are the drugs that—

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 9
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

10

Q. Are the consumption of the drugs next to her on that counter, that heroin 

and fentanyl, the reason that Shanee Dowler died?

A. Yes.

Dr. Miller went on to state that “fentanyl alone could have caused her death based on the testing.” 

For him, fentanyl was the “lead suspect.” 

Despite this testimony, defense counsel argues that the government failed to produce 

sufficient evidence of but-for causation because Dowler died due to a combination of Alprazolam, 

heroin, and fentanyl. In short, “[t]he alleged fentanyl and heroin in her system was not each 

independently sufficient to cause Dowler’s death.” Brief at 36. She quotes the holding of Burrage:

[W]here use of the drug distributed by the defendant is not an independently 

sufficient cause of the victim’s death or serious bodily injury, a defendant cannot 

be liable under the penalty enhancement provision of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) 

unless such use is a but-for cause of the death or injury.

Burrage, at 218-19 (emphasis added). In her brief, counsel fails to address adequately the italicized 

language, which goes to the “straw that broke the camel’s back” logic of Burrage. Id. at 211. Here, 

Dr. Miller testified that, while the Alprazolam ingested by Dowler would not have been fatal, when 

combined with the heroin and fentanyl allegedly supplied by defendant, it was. Thus, the drugs 

that the jury convicted defendant of distributing were a but-for cause of death, and the jury had 

sufficient evidence to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the sentencing enhancement was 

warranted.

3: Introduction of Evidence to Related to Counts 4 and 5

Defendant next contends that the introduction of evidence at trial about the two counts to 

which he had already pleaded guilty was improper under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). The 

rule reads in part as follows:

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 10
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

11

Crimes, Wrongs, or Other Acts.

(1) Prohibited Uses. Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to 

prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person 

acted in accordance with the character.

(2) Permitted Uses; Notice in a Criminal Case. This evidence may be admissible 

for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, 

knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident. 

Fed. R. Evid. 404(b). While we generally review the admission of Rule 404(b) evidence for an 

abuse of discretion, United States v. Allen, 619 F.3d 518, 523 (6th Cir. 2010), we have 

acknowledged that certain of our cases have adopted a three-step approach. See United States v. 

Mandoka, 869 F.3d 448, 457 (6th Cir. 2017) (summarizing the two approaches). Defendant 

suggests that we review for an abuse of discretion and we do so here, although our conclusion 

would be the same under either standard.

As mentioned at the outset, as part of the investigation into Dowler’s death, Elyria police 

detectives arranged for a confidential informant, Anthony Bouie, to make a controlled purchase of 

heroin from defendant. Bouie, who had died by the time of trial, had been briefly incarcerated with 

defendant. While the two shared living quarters, defendant allegedly told Bouie that his heroin was 

so good that it killed a girl. Bouie reported this conversation to the authorities who then arranged 

for the controlled purchase of over a gram of heroin, which was delivered in a clear bag. The 

government argued to the district court that the packaging was similar to the plastic baggy that was 

found on Dowler’s nightstand and was admissible to show identity, intent, and knowledge. 

The district court permitted the proposed testimony. At trial, the government called Elyria 

police detective Christopher Constantino who described the controlled buy between Bouie and 

defendant. Constantino also testified on cross-examination that the packaging of the heroin 

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 11
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

12

purchased by the confidential informant was “similar, if not the same” as the packaging found on 

Dowler’s nightstand. 

For his part, defendant contends that the res gestae, or background, evidence introduced at 

trial should not have been admitted because it was “not a prelude to counts 1 and 2, was not an 

integral part of any witness’s testimony, and did not complete the story of the charged offense.” 

Brief at 40. Rather, the controlled purchase occurred seventy-eight days after Dowler’s death. 

At trial, the government and the district court largely focused on whether Constantino’s 

testimony was admissible under Rule 404(b)(2), not whether it was admissible as res gestae

evidence, and the government’s arguments on appeal relate to Rule 404(b). Under Rule 404(b) and 

this Court’s precedent, evidence of a “crime, wrong, or other act” is generally inadmissible, but 

may be admitted to show “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, 

absence of mistake, or lack of accident.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(2), so long as its probative value is 

not substantially outweighed by its likelihood of unfairly prejudicing the defendant. United States 

v. Mack, 729 F.3d 594, 601 (6th Cir. 2013). To grant a defendant relief due to a district court’s 

Rule 404(b) error, this Court must find both that the district court abused its discretion in admitting 

the evidence and that its error requires reversing the defendant’s conviction. See United States v. 

Haywood, 280 F.3d 715, 724 (6th Cir. 2002). Reversing a defendant’s conviction is not required 

if a district court’s error was “harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of [a] [d]efendant’s 

guilt.” United States v. Murphy, 241 F.3d 447, 453 (6th Cir. 2001).

We affirm the district court on this point. Any error that it may have made in construing 

Rule 404(b) was harmless and therefore does not require reversal. Even if we assume that the 

district court erred in admitting Constantino’s testimony, there was “overwhelming evidence of 

Defendant’s guilt” in this case. Murphy, 241 F.3d at 453. Indeed, defendant eventually admitted 

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 12
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

13

near the end of the trial that there was “pretty strong evidence [defendant] sold [Ms. Dowler] 

heroin” based on a message the victim sent defendant asking “is this H?” to which defendant 

replied, “yes.” Thus, even if the district court abused its discretion in admitting the contested 

testimony, defendant’s conviction must stand.

4: Introduction of Defendant’s Statement about Drugs in his Possession

Without objection, the government called Melissa Cieszynski as a witness. She testified 

that she knew defendant from working as a bartender in Elyria. Cieszynski stated that she had been 

addicted to Vicodin and, later, to heroin. Defendant was a friend on Facebook: “Normally we 

talked about some sort of drugs.” According to the Facebook exchanges between them introduced 

at trial, defendant sent the message, “I got fire,” to Cieszynski shortly after allegedly selling heroin 

to Dowler. She understood that the “fire” was heroin. 

Defense counsel argues that this evidence was not introduced for a permissible purpose 

under Rule 404(b), but instead in an attempt to prove Mr. Lunn’s criminal character. In its pretrial 

motion to admit this evidence, the government contended that it helped to prove “absence of 

mistake relating to Defendant’s sale of the deadly heroin/fentanyl to Dowler, as well as his 

knowledge and absence of mistake about the potential potency and nature of the drug.” Defense 

counsel responds that the government did not need to establish state of mind with respect to 

potency to meet the elements of the charged offense. 

The government points out that, while this issue would typically be reviewed for an abuse 

of discretion, trial counsel’s failure to object makes our review one for clear error.

The evidence introduced by the government concerning defendant’s statement about “fire” 

was arguably admissible as res gestae evidence because it “ar[ose] from same events as the 

charged offense,” arguably “form[ed] an integral part of [Cieszynski]’s testimony,” and in some 

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 13
United States v. Lunn

No. 18-3568

14

sense “complete[d] the story of the charged offense.” See United States v. Hardy, 228 F.3d 745, 

748 (6th Cir. 2000). Because our review is for clear error and there existed a reasonable basis for 

admitting this evidence as res gestae, defendant’s argument fails. 

5: Ineffective Assistance 

Defendant argues that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by retaining a 

pharmacist rather than a medical pathologist to testify regarding causation at trial. Specifically, did 

the heroin and fentanyl mixture sold to Dowler “result in” her death? This circuit recognizes that 

the preferred mode for raising ineffective assistance claims is through a motion to vacate, 28 

U.S.C. § 2255, in order to develop the record adequately in the district court. United States v. 

Ferguson, 669 F.3d 756, 762 (6th Cir. 2012). 

There is nothing to suggest that the record here is adequately developed to determine 

whether counsel made a reasonable, strategic decision in selecting an expert. Accordingly, this 

argument should be raised to the district court in the context of a Section 2255 motion to vacate 

sentence.

III.

The judgment is affirmed.

 Case: 18-3568 Document: 63-2 Filed: 09/04/2019 Page: 14