Case Information
*1 Before LOKEN, MURPHY, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.
____________
LOKEN, Circuit Judge.
Robert James Jefferson, born in October 1977, joined the 6-0-Tres gang in
1993 and soon began participating in the St. Paul gang’s violent criminal activity. In
1998, after a six-week trial, a federal jury convicted Jefferson of conspiracy to
distribute cocaine and crack cocaine; two substantive drug trafficking offenses in
1997; the firebombing murder of five young children in February 1994, when
Jefferson was sixteen; and the drive-by shooting of a drug debtor and an innocent
*2
bystander in February 1995, when Jefferson was seventeen. Consistent with the then-
mandatory Sentencing Guidelines, the district court sentenced Jefferson to life in
prison; we affirmed the convictions and sentence on direct appeal. United States v.
Jefferson,
In Miller v. Alabama,
I.
Jefferson first argues that his 600-month sentence violates the Eighth
Amendment because the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishments is a “categorical bar on life without parole for juveniles.” Jefferson
*3
acknowledges that the Supreme Court in Miller expressly declined to consider this
issue. See 132 S. Ct. at 2469. But he contends that his conclusion “draws
inexorably” from the Court’s reasoning in Roper v. Simmons,
Roper categorically prohibited imposing the death penalty on a juvenile
offender.
The Court in Miller did not hold that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits imposing a sentence of life without parole on a juvenile offender. Rather, the Court held that the mandatory penalty schemes at issue prevented the sentencing judge or jury from taking into account “that the distinctive attributes of youth *4 diminish the penological justifications for imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile offenders, even when they commit terrible crimes.” Id. at 2465. The Court recognized that “about 15% of all juvenile life-without-parole sentences [then being served]” were non-mandatory sentences imposed at the discretion of a judge or jury. Id. at 2471-72 n.10. Rather than include those sentences in a broader categorical ban, the Court concluded only “that a judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles,” life without the possibility of parole. Id. at 2475.
Jefferson’s 600-month sentence does not fall within Miller’s categorical ban
on
mandatory
life-without-parole sentences. Jefferson was resentenced under now-
advisory federal guidelines after a hearing in which the district court carefully and
thoroughly applied the teaching of Roper, Graham, and Miller “that children are
constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing.” Miller, 132 S. Ct.
at 2464. The Supreme Court in Roper affirmed a discretionary sentence of life
without parole for a juvenile homicide offender.
II.
Alternatively, Jefferson argues that his 600-month sentence is substantively unreasonable because the district court failed to properly account for the discretionary factors in the sentencing of children recognized in Roper, Graham, and Miller. Specifically, Jefferson argues the district court (i) gave “short shrift” to evidence of his postsentencing rehabilitation; (ii) failed to weigh the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors “as informed by recent Eighth Amendment jurisprudence regarding juveniles”; and (iii) failed to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparity, as § 3553(a)(6) requires, because the juvenile who participated with Jefferson in the fire-bombing murders received a 60-month sentence.
We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence under a deferential
abuse-of-discretion standard. See United States v. Feemster,
We reject Jefferson’s substantive unreasonableness contention because the district court made an individualized sentencing decision that took full account of “the distinctive attributes of youth,” explaining its sentence in a thorough, 24-page Memorandum of Law & Order. The court found that several factors mitigated against a life sentence, all relating to Jefferson’s youth at the time of the murders and his subsequent, “extraordinary” rehabilitation in prison. Against those factors, the court weighed the seriousness of Jefferson’s crimes and his continued refusal to accept responsibility for the murders. The court varied downward from Jefferson’s advisory guidelines range of life in prison and imposed a lesser, albeit substantial sentence that was not substantively unreasonable.
(i) The district court did not give “short shrift” to evidence of Jefferson’s postsentencing rehabilitation. The court in its Order carefully reviewed this evidence:
Jefferson has demonstrated that he is amenable to rehabilitation. In the time that he has been in prison, approximately sixteen and one-half years, Jefferson has no disciplinary history. In addition, Jefferson completed 24 courses of study, including college-level courses such as logic, ethics and ancient philosophy. He has been continuously employed in prison, working in food service, sanitation and as a medical orderly. In addition, Jefferson convenes a weekly session of Bible *7 study. Prison staff have commented that Jefferson serves as a positive role model for other inmates in the Life Style Intervention Class.
Deeming Jefferson’s rehabilitation an “extraordinary success,” the court concluded that it “clearly weighs in favor of a finding that Jefferson is amendable to rehabilitation and would support a sentence other than life in prison.”
(ii) Likewise, the district court did not fail to weigh the § 3553(a) factors as
informed by the Supreme Court’s juvenile sentencing jurisprudence. In deciding to
vary downward from the advisory range of life in prison, the court acknowledged that
“children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing.” It
then evaluated the extent to which immaturity, failure to appreciate risk,
impulsiveness, peer pressure, and a difficult upbringing -- the mitigating factors of
youth emphasized in Miller,
In determining that 600 months in prison was an appropriate resentence, the
district court properly gave significant weight to the extreme severity of Jefferson’s
crimes -- causing “the horrific deaths of five young, innocent children,” attempting
to murder another man, and distributing “vast amounts of controlled substances.”
The court also properly considered that “Jefferson has not accepted full responsibility
for his actions.” See United States v. Harlan, No. 15-1552, slip op. at 11, --- F.3d ----
(8th Cir. Feb. 16, 2016). “[T]he district court has wide latitude to weigh the
§ 3553(a) factors and assign some factors greater weight than others.” United States
v. Thibeaux,
(iii) Contrary to Jefferson’s suggestion, the district court carefully considered
the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparity by reviewing decisions from other
districts that have applied Miller in resentencing juvenile homicide offenders to
substantial federal prison terms, rather than life in prison. See, e.g., United States v.
Byrant,
The Third Amended Judgment of the district court is affirmed.
______________________________
Notes
[1] The Honorable Michael J. Davis, then Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.
[2] Specifically, the court imposed concurrent sentences of 120 and 48 months for the drug trafficking counts; 600 months for each of the five 1994 murders; 120 months for the 1995 attempted murder of a drug debtor and for two conspiracy to murder counts; and 240 months for the 1995 drive-by shooting of the bystander.
[3] The Supreme Court has not yet applied its constitutional decision in Miller to a life sentence imposed by a federal court. Miller would no doubt apply to a life sentence mandated by a federal statute, such as 18 U.S.C. § 1959(a)(1). But applying Miller to a life sentence imposed when the mandatory guidelines range was life, and more particularly to a life sentence imposed under the advisory guidelines, raises more difficult questions we need not decide in this case. Both parties endorsed the district court’s prudent decision to conduct resentencing under the advisory guidelines, applying Miller’s principles.
[4] An individual sentence violates the Eighth Amendment if it is “grossly disproportionate to the crime.” Graham,560 U.S. at 59-60 (quotation omitted); see Harmelin v. Michigan,501 U.S. 957 , 998 (1991) (Kennedy, J., concurring). Jefferson does not make this distinct Eighth Amendment argument, no doubt because the success of such challenges in non-capital cases is “exceedingly rare.” Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11, 21 (2003) (quotation omitted); see United States v. Humphrey,753 F.3d 813 , 818 (8th Cir.), cert. denied,135 S. Ct. 385 (2014).