Pleas & Sentencing – Life Sentence

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Criminal

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials: POSNER and KANNE, Circuit Judges, and DARRAH, District Judge.

Pleas & Sentencing – Life Sentence

No. 13-3469 USA v. Sytles Taylor

No. 13-2814 USA v. Keon Thomas

Harsh upbringing and external forces outside of appellants’ control during youth warrants resentencing.

“The facts regarding Taylor’s personal history, if true (they have not yet been submitted to full evidentiary procedure), are possible grounds for mitigation—for reducing his sentence from life to a term of years. For they suggest that external forces beyond his ability to control created cognitive and psychological impairments that greatly diminished his ability to resist engaging in serious criminal activity. When substantial grounds for mitigation are presented, the sentencing judge must explain his reasons for rejecting them, see, e.g., United States v. Morris, 775 F.3d 882, 886–88 (7th Cir. 2015), and this the judge failed to do. The government agrees that Taylor’s sentence must therefore be vacated and the case remanded for resentencing. Although Thomas’s up‐ bringing was not as awful as Taylor’s, it was similar enough to persuade the government that he too is entitled to be re‐ sentenced. In all other respects (including rulings that we have not discussed because the defendants’ challenges to them are plainly devoid of merit) the judgments are affirmed.”

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded

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