ST. PAUL, Minn. – A man convicted of murder in a drug overdose death has been denied by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Darnell McDaniels, 55 of Rush City, was found guilty of 3rd degree murder in March 2017 and was sentenced to 13 years and two months in prison. Authorities say McDaniels provided the heroin that contributed to the death of Daniel Kean, 37, in January 2015.
Kean was living at a group residential home in Rochester for men with drug addiction or mental health issues when authorities say McDaniels visited him and gave him some heroin. Kean died about two hours later.

In McDaniels’ appeal, he argued there was insufficient evidence to prove he was the source of the deadly heroin, that the judge should never had admitted a statement from Kean before his death that he got the heroin from McDaniels, that the judge should never had admitted at trial a statement McDaniels made to police about selling heroin to Kean in the past, that the judge should never have admitted evidence of other drug sales made by McDaniels, and that the judge was prejudiced against him.

The Court of Appeals has completed rejected all of those arguments and affirmed McDaniels’ conviction and sentence. In particular, the Court ruled that McDaniels’ accusations of bias against the judge “are without merit.”