A juvenile defendant facing charges of murder in aid of racketeering cannot be tried as an adult because the possible sentence would run afoul of recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a March 20 opinion.
The 4th Circuit said that because the charge carries a mandatory sentence of either life in prison or death, allowing a juvenile to face prosecution as an adult would be unconstitutional.
In a string of recent cases, the Supreme Court has held that juveniles cannot face mandatory sentences of life in prison or the death penalty because those penalties would be disproportionate for most offenses committed by defendants under the age of 18.
In U.S. v. Under Seal, the 4th Circuit rejected arguments from prosecutors that the trial court had the ability to excise the mandatory life sentence provision from the statute and consider alternative sentences. Writing for the three-judge panel, Judge Steven Agee said severing the mandatory sentence provision from the statute, as the government wanted, would make the law unworkable.
“We agree with the district court that the defendant cannot be prosecuted for murder in aid of racketeering because his conviction would require the court to impose an unconstitutional sentence,” said Judge Steven Agee, writing for the three-judge panel.
The 4th Circuit’s decision in U.S. v. Under Seal includes few specifics on the underlying crime because the defendant was a minor at the time. Court records say only that the murder in aid of racketeering charge stemmed from allegations the defendant participated in a gang-related homicide in Virginia when he was a few months shy of his 18th birthday.
After prosecutors attempted to try him as an adult, the defendant argued that the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama made it illegal to impose a mandatory life sentence on a juvenile. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled in Montgomery v. Louisiana that the Miller decision should apply retroactively. The high court had already struck down death sentences for juveniles much earlier.
Based on those cases, the defendant argued it would be unconstitutional to try him as an adult.
However, prosecutors argued that even if the mandatory life sentence provision were unconstitutional, the district court had other options available to it that would have allowed the defendant to be tried as an adult. The statute addressing murder in the aid of racketeering also includes separate charges for kidnapping, which carries a sentence of up to a maximum of life in prison.
The government argued that the district court should have read the statute as allowing the same penalty for kidnapping to be applied to the murder in aid of racketeering charge.
But the 4th Circuit said that proposal violates the principles governing both severance and due process. Agee said in the opinion that the Supreme Court has made it clear that a crime and its penalty are closely linked. If the only penalties for one crime are deemed unconstitutional, Agee said, the proper course is not to simply swap in a penalty for another crime.
“Substituting the congressionally designated punishment for one distinct act for that articulated for another, separate act goes beyond the permissible boundaries of severance and treads into the legislative role,” Agee said.
Drew Erteschik, a partner in Poyner Spruill’s appellate practice in Raleigh, said the 4th Circuit’s decision provides a good example of how statutory severance is supposed to work.
“In a nutshell, the excision test looks like this: If you strike through the unconstitutional portion, and the remaining portion can’t function on its own, then excision is not an option,” Erteschik said. “As Judge Agee’s opinion showed quite well, that was the case here.”
That said, the 4th Circuit said prosecutors could still file different charges against the defendant, which would still allow him to be tried as an adult but would not cross the boundaries laid out by the Supreme Court. The government could also try the defendant as a juvenile on the murder in aid of racketeering charge.
“Those options are solely in the government’s province to pursue, and we offer no opinion in that regard,” Agee said.
The defendant was represented on appeal by Keva McDonald, a solo practitioner in Fairfax, Virginia. McDonald could not be reached for comment.
Julia Martinez of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia argued on behalf of the government. A spokesman for the office did not return calls seeking comment.
The 28-page opinion is U.S. v. Under Seal (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-064-16). A digest of the full opinion is available online at sclawyersweekly.com.
Follow Jeff Jeffrey on Twitter at @SCLWJeffrey.