United States v. Cooper

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ARGUED SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and POSNER and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

Kevin Cooper was a heroin dealer who operated out of the Centralia area in southern Illinois. Eventually the police caught up with him, and he was charged and convicted of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. On appeal, he challenges both his conviction and his sentence. He asserts that he is entitled to a new trial because of the way that the district court handled his request for self-representation, the fact that he was shackled throughout the trial, and the court’s failure to exclude certain inflammatory evidence. Even if the conviction stands, he argues, his life sentence was unreasonable, because the court placed too much weight on various deaths that were attributable to his heroin sales. Although we are inclined to agree with Cooper that some errors were made, we are satisfied that they were harmless. We therefore affirm.

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