123816P.pdf   05/02/2014  United States  v.  Lorenzo Harris-Thompson
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  12-3816
                          and No:  13-1021
   U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Cedar Rapids   
   [PUBLISHED] [Loken, Author, with Riley, Chief Judge, and Wollman, Circuit 
   Judge] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. District court did not err in 
   denying defendant's motion for a mistrial after the court received and 
   investigated reports of possible improper third-party contact with the 
   jury; evidence was sufficient to support defendant's conviction in a 
   murder-for-hire scheme; challenges to evidentiary rulings rejected; 
   district court did not err in rejecting defendant's proposed 
   theory-of-defense and mistake-of-fact instructions; no error in denying 
   defendant's motion to withdraw an earlier plea to a 
   drug-user-in-possession of a firearm charge; district court did not abuse 
   its discretion by imposing consecutive sentences, and the resulting 
   840-month sentence, while unquestionably long, was not substantively 
   unreasonable.