United States v. Michael Young

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: August 2, 2023
• Docket: 22-4373
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 22-4373 Doc: 54 Filed: 08/02/2023 Pg: 1 of 3

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-4373

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

MICHAEL KENNETH YOUNG, a/k/a Mizzle,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Columbia. Margaret B. Seymour, Senior District Judge. (3:15-cr-00051-MBS-1)

Submitted: July 20, 2023 Decided: August 2, 2023

Before GREGORY, WYNN, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: W. Michael Duncan, DUNCAN & HEYDARY LAW, PLLC, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Adair F. Boroughs, United States Attorney, Benjamin Neale Garner, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. USCA4 Appeal: 22-4373 Doc: 54 Filed: 08/02/2023 Pg: 2 of 3

PER CURIAM:

Michael Kenneth Young appeals the 180-month sentence imposed upon

resentencing following his conviction on two counts of possessing a firearm as a convicted

felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2), (e) (2018). On appeal, Young

argues that, on the facts of this case, his sentence—the mandatory minimum sentence

required by the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) (ACCA)—violates the

Eighth Amendment. We affirm.

Because Young did not raise a constitutional challenge to his sentence in the district

court, our review is for plain error. See United States v. Miller, 41 F.4th 302, 310 (4th Cir.

2022) (explaining that unpreserved constitutional challenges are subject to plain error

review). “A term-of-years prison sentence such as [Young’s] may violate the Eighth

Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment when it is disproportionate to

the crime for which it is imposed.” United States v. Ross, 72 F.4th 40, 51 (4th Cir. 2023)

(internal quotation marks omitted). This standard “forbids only extreme sentences that are

grossly disproportionate to the crime.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We follow

a two-step test to determine whether a sentence is grossly disproportionate; the first step of

that analysis requires us to “conduct[] a threshold comparison of the gravity of the offense

and the severity of the sentence and ask[] whether that comparison leads to an inference of

gross disproportionality.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). It is “rare” for this step

to be satisfied, id. (internal quotation marks omitted), and “the Supreme Court has

instructed that rational legislative judgments to impose harsh sentences for serious offenses

generally are entitled to deference in the proportionality analysis,” id. at 52 (cleaned up).

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Upon review, we conclude that Young’s 180-month mandatory minimum sentence

does not plainly violate the Eighth Amendment. See id. at 51 (collecting cases); see also

United States v. Presley, 52 F.3d 64, 68 (4th Cir. 1995) (“[A] fifteen-year sentence under

ACCA is neither disproportionate to the offense nor cruel and unusual punishment, and

thus does not violate the Eighth Amendment.”), abrogated on other grounds by Johnson v.

United States, 559 U.S. 133 (2010); Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 994 (1991)

(holding that “[s]evere, mandatory penalties may be cruel, but they are not unusual in the

constitutional sense”). We therefore affirm the criminal judgment.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are

adequately presented in the materials before this Court and argument would not aid the

decisional process.

AFFIRMED