appeal of his military sense and proceeds to address the reasonableness of a fifty two year sentence imposed on a fifteen year old who is under the influence of his more d blameworthy family members the overriding concern we have with this reports in is the simple premise that if file is different in a case involving that shot must be handled differently by our courts against the aggravating factors one the fact that your friend was fifteen years old at the time of the offense to that mr frank would have trouble getting away from the influence of his family members and three never in the district courts union the district court ever specifically stated mr friend was fifteen years old and this had implications but you know i don't feel counsel let me just back up a say in the whole premise of this sorry if i gave that impression i didn't need to of course he knew he was a juvenile and he certainly knew that he was fifteen years old but he didn't acknowledge the specific age of mr friend in his opinion and he didn't distinguish the fact that a fifteen year old perhaps should be treated differently than a sixteen or seventeen year old mr friend as a fifteen year old was on the very lowest end of the spectrum under the federal bill or the sentence and the painstaking measures to basically look into every single federal miller resentencing that has come before us we presented graphs and summaries of each of those cases to the district where we actually use the services of the juvenile laughlin at the university of richmond law school to prepare these materials for the district court and it really  th and when you balance the thirty five thirty eight factors especially early part of the three a six when you look at the unwarranted disparity between the fifty two year sentence mean read han we can dance around the fact that mr brown role in these carjackings in the treatment of these truck drivers case in the court in texas the district court in mr sparks the early years of your lewd conduct or more regis than what we have that mr friend personally did look at the thomas but isn't the guidelines a recommendation doesn't that take into account the fact that i mean doesn't that take into account what is fairly aware of the fact that they're going to be individual circumstances and you know different cases before different judges are going to result in some disparities so  but i think that the sentencing commission is acting with those disparities as a kind of a background context and then it comes up with a conclusion  ok the nature of this crime is such that we're recommending this particular signs and this was  fact not only within the guidelines range of it it was as we know below but what i'm wondering is don't the guidelines act in the context of knowing that they're going to be variations in sentence and things as yet taking those variations into account they come up with a recommendation as to the severity of the crime so the defendant sentence in this case is really not out of line with sentences post miller that have been affirmed as to the court's explanation on the disparity i like to focus on st three factors that sixty five year sentence down to a fifty two year sentence so right there the judge gives this court a you know direct statement of what's different in the recent saying and what drove the court law which says that comparisons of defendants is inherently very difficult because there are always distinguishing factors among them and unique circumstances and so that then leads me to the court's discussion about the defendant's age and the expert testimony that the defendant presented which was extensive about  philip friends youth his circumstances and his family that he had would be weighed against the gravity of the crime and ultimately i don't think that the  have that level of granularity in discussing the harm to mr cummings urse is the the defendant's interest in a shorter sentence and similarly when it comes to sample  defendant knew already that d this family had murdered soren corn for the defendant i'm still to beat john cummings for six hours and eugene head had to stop the defendant  proceeded to feed him for fifty minutes these are very unique facts in a court i don't think has to in what is ultimately kind of an increment circle comparison of the defen interest of a shorter sentence the victims and their family members very very serious arms and how those are balanced out and take you to account public safety as well it's reduce the sentence twenty percent and i just wonder do you see a lot of these and you may get some insight on what happens when they come back down is that an unusual degree of reduction for these sort of blue i don't know that i could generalize about what happens on failure to explain remains sometimes nothing changes but sometimes it sometimes does and i do think in this case the judge gave us the reason that really changed the sentence in this case because i doubt that the judge is evaluation of the harm to the victims the gravity of the crime and the defendant's age changed that materially i think what really drove the sentence that's what he told us which years old when he gets out and he's been in prison says she will young teenager i think that that's a factor a judge so it's certainly appropriate for him to consider i think that the  certainly sorry i don't think he'd be sixty seven at the date of his release i believe once you take into account good time credits that it's closer to sixty that he would be released that is mimic question first do you agree do you agree that the miller issue or maybe my governor a better phrased includes some term of years if he had gotten a nine hundred year determining when you have nine hundred years doesn't work you know forty years i presume would would certainly be be acceptable to everyone but how do we know where to draw that line we have to look at actuarial tables are we how we even supposed to do that i do think that is one of the very hard questions that remains after miller and i don't think any corps has that have struck down no term of years on the grounds that the term of years was too long been any of those cases there i mean courts have to have accepted that sentences that exceed really normal life expectancies like two hundred and fifty four years are of the fact of d life sentences and you need a porch ability to terminations to uphold it under miller but for sentences in the range that this sentences here so for example  fifty year sentence for a sixteen year old that was uphill so this i don't think this court needs to come up with an ultimate test for when something of the de facto life  understand that the miller in jefferson they were talking about there not being a mandatory life without parole i'm not sure that those cases you know you can impose a life without parole but you just can't do it as a mandatory matter you have to look at the individual circumstances and then the light is that correct yes i think that's right i mean when you're dealing it is not a not a per se bar to life without parole in the case of a juvenile it's a question of  all life whether this is no life without parole sentence probably in light of what you're talking about in the th circuit in the nd circuit but i did not understand those cases as  an absolute bar to mandatory life without parole but i did understand them as saying there has to be an exercise in judgment and there has to be you have to look at individual circumstances as a part of the exercise of the district court discretion you know that correct i agree with that and i think when you're dealing with a case that is a life sentence the supreme ringback pending case of jones versus mississippi is going to shut some late on what exactly are the findings and needed to host miller for life sentence  just simply doesn't involve a life sentence and so i don't think ultimately it's necessary to answer the question that is before the supreme court  employee support the court acted within its discretion here  and so the care question is well why is that out and the reason that there are some cases below it in some cases above it which is what an average  circumstances of the crime and more than that he has a grasp of the characteristics of the defendant and what kind of person what kind of individual those court said in those state court cases the seven state supreme court said the fifty year sentence does not allow a person who has a juvenile was sentenced to fifty years is not allowed that person cook as we all know you can't come down and exercise a nod for circuit tradition of shaking your hands personally but we do want to say to each of you that we are there is no less of an appreciation of the services that each of you rendered to the court and so thank you both and the court will take five minute recess and then we will