US v. McCain: McCain, who was then 17 years old, shot a pair of what he believed were cooperators in the investigation of the drug operation of which McCain was a part. One of them died, the other lived “but with permanent and disabling injuries” (McCain ran out of bullets, so he ran off and returned with a knife, only to find a crowd gathered at the shooting site). McCain was transferred to adult status and pleaded guilty to witness tampering by murder, witness tampering by attempted murder, and using a firearm in connection with a drug trafficking crime and a crime of violence. The district court imposed a mandatory sentence of life on the murder charge (after McCain, while awaiting sentencing, sent letters threatening to kill several people, including the attempted murder victim).
In 2016, McCain filed a 2255 motion to vacate his sentence on the basis of intervening Supreme Court law that had held that mandatory life sentences for juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment. The Government agreed and McCain was resentenced. The district court imposed another life sentence, concluding that McCain’s record in prison (which included a sexual assault of another inmate when he was moved back to the district court for resentence) showed that this was “one of those uncommon cases where sentencing a juvenile to the hardest possible penalty [was] appropriate.”
The Fourth Circuit affirmed McCain’s new life sentence. First, the court rejected McCain’s argument that because the only authorized sentences for the murder conviction were life in prison or death, the district court could not actually sentence him at all and should have sua sponte vacated the conviction. Applying plain error, the court concluded there was no prejudice (even if there was error) because McCain’s other counts of conviction (and the accompanying Guideline ranges) would still have allowed for the life sentence. Second, the court concluded that “the sentencing hearing easily satisfied our requirements for procedural reasonableness” and the relevant Supreme Court cases and that the district court appropriately considered McCain’s juvenile status at the time of the offense, not just his post-arrest record. The court also concluded that there was no procedural error in the district court’s rejection of McCain’s request for a “de facto parole” setup where the court would regularly revisit his sentence, noting that there is no law authorizing such a scheme. Finally, the court held that McCain’s life sentence was substantively reasonable.
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