United States v. Danny Turner, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 4365

Turner was convicted in the Western District of Wisconsin on three counts of distributing cocaine base (crack) based on undercover purchases.
Hanson, the chemist who performed testing, was on maternity leave; Block testified as a supervisor expert relying on Hanson’s data.
On remand from the Supreme Court’s Williams v. Illinois decision, the court reconsidered whether Block’s testimony violated the Confrontation Clause.
The court assumed Hanson’s underlying report could be testimonial and thus Block’s testimony about Hanson’s procedures and conclusions could implicate Confrontation Clause rights.
Despite potential error, the court held any Confrontation Clause violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given substantial independent evidence that the substances were crack cocaine and Turner’s defense strategy did not hinge on altering that identification.
The court affirmed Turner’s conviction on the practical ground that the evidence, taken as a whole, supported the result even if the challenged testimony were excluded.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Block’s testimony violated the Confrontation Clause after Williams	Government: such testimony was permissible and harmless	Turner: admission violated the Confrontation Clause	Harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt

Williams v. Illinois, 132 S. Ct. 2231 (2012) (confrontation issues when an expert relays data from another analyst)
Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 131 S. Ct. 2705 (2011) (testimony about laboratory results may implicate testimonial statements)
United States v. Moon, 512 F.3d 359 (7th Cir. 2008) (expert may base opinion on data from another analyst)
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 (2009) (forensic reports treated as testimonial)
DePierre v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2237 (2011) (statutory framework for cocaine base and testing)
Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673 (1986) (harmless error standard applies to evidentiary Confrontation Clause claims)