United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit 

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No. 22-1448

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United States of America

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Ryan McDaniel

 Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis

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Submitted: December 15, 2022

Filed: February 10, 2023

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Before SMITH, Chief Judge, GRUENDER and STRAS, Circuit Judges. 

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GRUENDER, Circuit Judge. 

Ryan McDaniel pleaded guilty to carjacking and brandishing-a-firearm

charges and received a 179-month sentence. He now argues that the district court1

1

The Honorable Stephen R. Clark, then United States District Judge for the 

Eastern District of Missouri, now Chief Judge.
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committed procedural and substantive errors in determining his sentence. We 

affirm. 

I.

McDaniel carjacked at gunpoint a Domino’s delivery driver in St. Louis, 

Missouri. Police officers apprehended McDaniel after an extended high-speed chase

that traversed multiple interstate highways and residential neighborhoods in St. 

Louis City and County. At the time of his arrest, McDaniel was on parole for a 

second-degree robbery conviction. 

McDaniel pleaded guilty to carjacking, 18 U.S.C. § 2119, and brandishing a 

firearm, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii). While awaiting sentencing, McDaniel

committed multiple instances of violent conduct at the Jefferson County, Missouri 

jail. He attempted to strike the jail nurse, twice charged at correctional officers, and

engaged in a scuffle that resulted in a sheriff’s deputy breaking an ankle. McDaniel 

lost credit for acceptance of responsibility as a result of these and other incidents.

See U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1. McDaniel and the Government then jointly recommended a 

53-month sentence for the carjacking charge to be served consecutively with the 84-

month statutory minimum sentence for brandishing, § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii), for a total

sentence of 137 months.

The district court declined to accept the parties’ recommended sentence. In 

determining McDaniel’s sentence, the district court began by considering the 

advisory sentencing guidelines, calculating a total offense level of 25 and a criminalhistory category of IV. Factoring in the 84-month statutory minimum, that yielded 

a guidelines range of 168 to 189 months. The district court then weighed the 18 

U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, discussing aggravating and mitigating factors. 

Towards the end of the § 3553(a) discussion, the district court made remarks 

that are at the heart of McDaniel’s appeal. Referencing data available from the 

United States Sentencing Commission’s Judiciary Sentencing Information (“JSIN”) 
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tool, the district court said that twenty-nine offenders in the database who committed

a similar offense and had the same guidelines offense level and criminal-history 

category as McDaniel received a median sentence of 180 months and a mean

sentence of 181 months. McDaniel’s counsel interjected and asked whether the 

district court knew how many offenders in that dataset had received an 84-month

mandatory minimum sentence as part of their overall sentence.

2 The district court 

responded as follows:

Yes. All of them. The data is on the 29 offenders whose primary 

guideline was 2B3.1 [the guideline applicable to robbery offenses] and 

who were convicted of at least one count of 18, United States Code, 

Section 924(c) with a final offense level of 25 and a criminal history 

category of four.

The district court then offered a brief rationale for considering the JSIN data: 

So it’s information I consider. It’s a data point. It’s not dispositive. 

Just like the guidelines, it is information that is—I do take into account 

and consider it as one of the factors in determining and fashioning a 

sentence. And in considering avoiding unwarranted sentencing 

disparities among defendants on a nationwide basis not on a local basis. 

That’s what the guidelines and the Supreme Court require. 

The district court then formally denied what it referred to as “the joint 

recommendation and joint motion for a downward variance” and sentenced 

McDaniel to 179 months’ imprisonment.

McDaniel appeals his sentence, alleging that the district court committed 

procedural error and that his sentence is substantively unreasonable. 

2

Under § 924(c), offenders may be subject to 60-month, 84-month, or 120-

month statutory minimums depending on whether a firearm is possessed, 

brandished, or discharged during a crime of violence. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i)-(iii). Repeat 

offenders are subject to a statutory minimum of 300 months. § 924(c)(1)(C)(i).
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II.

McDaniel first argues that the district court procedurally erred by referring to 

the JSIN statistics. McDaniel claims that he had a right under Rule 32 of the Federal 

Rules of Criminal Procedure to have notice of, and therefore time to review, all 

material information relied on by the district court at sentencing. Moreover, 

according to McDaniel, the district court erroneously interpreted the JSIN data. See 

United States v. Wright, 799 F.2d 423, 426 (8th Cir. 1986) (“[S]entences based upon 

material misinformation or erroneous assumptions violate due process.”); United 

States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455, 461 (8th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (explaining that a 

district court procedurally errs by “selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous 

facts”).

A. 

We begin by addressing McDaniel’s claim that the district court was obligated 

to disclose its intent to rely on the JSIN statistics. On its face, the disclosure 

requirement in Rule 32 only applies to the probation officer’s presentence 

investigation report. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(e)(2). However, in United States v. 

Lovelace, we stated that “a district court’s reliance at sentencing on material 

information not disclosed in advance to a defendant violates the Rule 32 process.” 

565 F.3d 1080, 1092 (8th Cir. 2009) (finding that a district court’s reliance on its 

personal and undisclosed knowledge of victim impact violated Rule 32). According 

to McDaniel, the district used the JSIN data in a material way when determining his

sentence and therefore should have disclosed it in advance of sentencing.

McDaniel did not object to the district court’s failure to disclose in advance 

of sentencing its intent to rely on the JSIN data. Nevertheless, McDaniel argues 

that he preserved de novo review because he could not have had the opportunity to 

formulate an objection to the JSIN data without knowing about its use in advance. 

See Fed R. Crim. P. 51(b). Given these circumstances, McDaniel claims that we 

should treat his counsel’s question about the JSIN dataset’s composition as 
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informing the district court of his claim of error. We disagree. McDaniel’s counsel 

need not have studied the JSIN data prior to the sentencing hearing to have realized 

that the district court had not disclosed the JSIN data. We therefore review for plain 

error. See Fed R. Crim. P. 52(b); Greer v. United States, 588 U.S. ---, 141 S.Ct. 

2090, 2096 (2021). 

Even assuming that McDaniel could show the district court erred by not 

disclosing its intent to rely on JSIN data, this error would not be plain. An error is 

plain only if, at the time of appellate review, the erroneous nature of the trial court’s 

decision is obvious. Henderson v. United States, 568 U.S. 266, 273-74 (2013). 

Lovelace and caselaw from other circuits establish that a district court cannot rely 

on certain kinds of undisclosed information, especially private information about the 

defendant’s crime and its impact on victims. See United States v. Hayes, 171 F.3d 

389, 392 (6th Cir. 1999) (holding that a district court’s reliance on confidential 

victim-impact letters violates Rule 32). However, we have not held that the Lovelace

disclosure rule extends broadly to public information that is not specific to the 

defendant. Indeed, we rejected a challenge to a district court’s use of undisclosed 

general knowledge about a state’s prison system in United States v. Becker, 

explaining that a district court’s personal knowledge of a defendant’s criminal 

conduct and its impact on victims “differs substantially from general knowledge 

about the prison system.” 636 F.3d 402, 406-07 (8th Cir. 2011). Therefore, it is not 

plainly the case at the time of our review that the district court was obliged to 

disclose in advance its intent to rely on publicly available JSIN data. 

Thus, the district court did not commit plain error by relying on the 

undisclosed JSIN data. We therefore reject McDaniel’s argument that the district 

court procedurally erred by failing to disclose the JSIN data in advance of 

sentencing. 
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B.

We next turn to McDaniel’s claim that the district court relied on an erroneous 

interpretation of the JSIN data in determining its sentence. McDaniel argues that the 

district court mistakenly understood the JSIN dataset as only containing offenders 

with an offense carrying an 84-month minimum under § 924(c) as part of their 

overall sentence. McDaniel’s briefing diligently reviews the underlying twenty-nine

cases in the JSIN dataset relied on by the district court. In only twenty of those cases 

was the defendant subject to an 84-month § 924(c) minimum. For these twenty

defendants, the average sentence was 172 months and the median 168 months. In 

the other cases, two of the other offenders had a 60-month statutory minimum, six 

had a 120-month statutory minimum, and one had a 300-month statutory minimum.

The district court therefore did not understand the composition of the dataset, 

according to McDaniel. McDaniel received a 179-month sentence, and the district 

court stated that the JSIN median was 180 months. McDaniel thus argues that the 

JSIN data shaped the district court’s sentencing determination and that he would 

have received a lower sentence if the district court relied on a dataset exclusively 

containing offenders with an 84-month § 924(c) minimum.

The Government does not dispute McDaniel’s conclusion that offenders in the 

dataset with an 84-month § 924(c) minimum received lower mean and median 

sentences than the figures announced by the district court. Instead, the Government

argues that the district court understood the variance in § 924(c) statutory minimums 

within the dataset but misunderstood McDaniel’s question about the dataset’s 

composition. The Government emphasizes that after the district court answered 

“yes” to McDaniel’s counsel’s question about the § 924(c) minimum, the district 

court proceeded to explain that the offenders “were convicted of at least one count 

of 18, United States Code, Section 924(c).” According to the Government, the 

district court thereby indicated its awareness that the JSIN database included 

offenders with statutory minimums of lengths other than 84 months. 
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We assume without deciding that the district court incorrectly interpreted the 

JSIN data. However, we conclude that a remand for resentencing is unnecessary 

because the district court’s alleged error did not prejudice McDaniel. A procedural 

error is harmless when it “did not substantially influence the outcome of the 

sentencing proceeding.” United States v. Woods, 670 F.3d 883, 886 (8th Cir. 2012). 

“A court’s determined focus on other matters when fixing a sentence can convince 

us in the appropriate case that an error didn’t affect the court’s sentencing 

conclusion.” United States v. Shell, 23 F.4th 803, 806 (8th Cir. 2022). 

In Shell, we found a district court’s invocation of allegedly errant statistics at

sentencing to be harmless. Id. at 805-06. The defendant in that case, a career 

offender under § 924(c), also sought a below-guidelines sentence. The district court

said that it “looked at the United States Sentencing Commission data for career 

offenders because [it] wasn’t just super familiar with sentencing statistics for 924(c) 

career offenders.” Id. at 805. It interpreted that data as showing that a majority of 

§ 924(c) career offenders nationwide do not receive below-guidelines variances. Id. 

at 805. Assuming the Shell district court incorrectly interpreted the data, we 

nevertheless declined to remand for resentencing because the sentencing transcript 

showed that the court “focused extensively on other matters in selecting an 

appropriate sentence.” Id. at 805-06. These other matters were “the nature and 

seriousness of Shell’s offenses, his multiple, dangerous flights from law 

enforcement, and especially his criminal history.” Id. at 806. Thus, viewing the 

record in its totality, we found that “the court fixed Shell’s sentence by focusing in 

a determined way on the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of his case, not 

on the sentences that other 924(c) career offenders received.” Id.

A review of the sentencing transcript in this case demonstrates that the district 

court similarly focused on McDaniel’s offense and other aggravating factors in 

determining the sentence. Like the district court in Shell, the district court in this 

case referenced the disputed data merely for comparative purposes as a “data point.”
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Starting with McDaniel’s offenses, the district court described them as “very, 

very disturbing,” emphasizing that during the carjacking McDaniel pointed his 

firearm at the victim and threatened to shoot him. The district court also focused on 

McDaniel’s high-speed attempt to evade police apprehension, noting that McDaniel 

“imperiled many people on the interstates”; “went through residential 

neighborhoods, disobey[ing] several traffic stops, traffic lights and stop signs while 

creating a substantial risk to the public”; and was apprehended only after law 

enforcement deployed spike strips at risk to their own safety. 

The district court then considered McDaniel’s criminal history, stating that 

McDaniel “has a significant history that causes me grave concern” and discussing

McDaniel’s past offenses at length. The court noted a recidivist pattern by

comparing his present crime with his past crimes involving stealing, firearms, and 

highly unsafe driving. The court also emphasized McDaniel’s post-arrest 

misconduct, noting the deputy’s broken ankle, McDaniel’s attempt to strike a jail 

nurse, and two other times when McDaniel charged at correctional officers. The 

district court then reviewed applicable mitigating factors, such as family history, 

substance abuse, and mental-health issues. The court, however, concluded that 

McDaniel “made terrible choices despite all of the warnings and opportunities to 

change his behavior” and “continues to pose serious and substantial threats to 

society.” 

Only after this extended discussion of McDaniel’s crimes and aggravating 

circumstances did the district court discuss the JSIN data. Shortly after that 

exchange, the district court summarized its analysis by again focusing on defendantspecific matters. The district court highlighted the aggravating circumstances and 

emphasized that it grounded its decision in the § 3553(a) factors. It stated: 

I have arrived at a sentence that’s sufficient but not greater than 

necessary to comply with the purposes of 18, United States Code, 

Section 3553(a). And notwithstanding the objections in this case, I 

would impose the same sentence based on my consideration of the 
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3553(a) factors and all the facts and circumstances of this case as I have 

related them here today. 

I deny the joint -- what is essentially the joint recommendation and joint 

motion for a downward variance for all the reasons I have stated. It does 

not adequately reflect the nature and characteristics of the offense; the 

history and characteristics of the defendant; the seriousness of the

danger created by the defendant’s offense here, including his extended 

high-speed fleeing and endangering other people; the pattern of 

escalating conduct; the victim impact which there is a trauma 

experienced by carjacking victims that I think is well-known. 

And I’ve considered the sentences of similarly-situated defendants and 

I’ve considered all of the arguments that have been presented here very 

ably by counsel today. 

The district court then concluded by announcing that it had rejected the parties’ jointmotion for a downward variance and by imposing a 179-month sentence. 

The district court’s explanation for selecting the 179-month sentence thus 

“puts its statistical observation in the appropriate context.” See Shell, 23 F.4th at 

806. The district court maintained a determined focus on the aggravating 

circumstances in McDaniel’s case and imposed McDaniel’s sentence based on its 

consideration of the § 3553(a) factors. Relatedly, the district court stated that the 

sentencing data was “not dispositive,” or, in other words, not a deciding factor in its 

sentencing determination. See United States v. Marin, 31 F.4th 1049, 1057 (8th Cir. 

2022) (finding any error made by a district court in calculating the guidelines range 

to be harmless because the district court extensively considered the § 3553(a) factors 

and explained that the guidelines were “an important, though not in any way 

controlling, factor to be considered.”). 

Moreover, the district court repeatedly referenced the applicable sentencing 

guidelines range of 168 to 189 months, including when discussing national 

consistency, and noted that the parties requested a downward variance of 31 to 52 

months. The guidelines range thus provided the district court with an independent 
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source of information, aside from the JSIN data, for its considerations of national 

consistency. Cf. United States v. Wise, 17 F.4th 785, 788-89 (8th Cir. 2021) 

(explaining that a district court’s erroneous statement at sentencing that heroin sold 

by the defendant contained fentanyl was harmless because the court relied on other, 

independent evidence which demonstrated that the defendant was aware of heroin’s 

dangerous nature). Lastly, we note that the 179-month sentence McDaniel received 

was also the approximate mid-point of the 168 to 189 month guidelines range. This

further rebuts McDaniel’s contention that the length of the sentence he received 

demonstrates that he was prejudiced by the district court’s improper interpretation 

of the JSIN data. 

In sum, we find that any error made by the district court in interpreting the 

JSIN statistics “did not substantially influence the outcome of the sentencing 

proceeding” because the district court focused on McDaniel, not the data. See

Woods, 670 F.3d at 886. If the district court erred in this case, its error was harmless. 

III.

We next turn to McDaniel’s claim that the district court substantively erred 

by imposing an unreasonable sentence. We review the substantive reasonableness 

of a district court’s sentence for abuse of discretion. United States v. Godfrey, 863 

F.3d 1088, 1099 (8th Cir. 2017). Sentences within the guidelines range are 

presumptively reasonable. United States v. Jones, 990 F.3d 1141, 1144 (8th Cir. 

2021). 

McDaniel argues that the district court substantively erred by excessively 

relying on nationwide sentencing data and by giving insignificant weight to 

mitigating factors. See § 3553(a). We disagree. As described above, the sentencing 

transcript indicates that the district court only briefly considered the JSIN data in a 

non-dispositive manner. Indeed, the district court primarily relied on factors specific 

to McDaniel, most importantly the severity of his crimes and his extensive criminal 
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history. Therefore, the record does not support McDaniel’s suggestion that the 

district court excessively relied on the JSIN data in determining a sentence. 

McDaniel’s claim that the district court gave insignificant weight to 

mitigating factors also lacks support. The district court discussed mitigating factors, 

including mental health, family issues, and substance abuse. However, it concluded 

that they should carry little weight because McDaniel had failed to take advantage 

of multiple opportunities to turn his life around and remained a threat to society. In 

sum, the district court did not abuse its discretion by giving mitigating factors short 

shrift; rather, it persuasively explained why aggravating factors should carry more 

weight. See Feemster, 572 F.3d at 461-62 (explaining that we must give “due 

deference” to a district court’s weighing of the § 3553(a) factors). 

McDaniel’s 179-month, within-guidelinessentence reflects the district court’s 

careful weighing of the § 3553(a) factors. As the district court did not fail to consider 

or properly weigh any relevant factor or otherwise commit a clear error of judgment, 

we conclude that McDaniel’s sentence is not substantively unreasonable. 

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm. 

STRAS, Circuit Judge, Dissenting. 

The district court said what it said during the sentencing hearing, and what it 

said was wrong. In answering a question about a search it ran using the Judiciary 

Sentencing Information tool, which aggregates data on offenders sentenced in the 

federal system, it declared that all 29 offenders in the dataset had an 84-month 

statutory-minimum sentence. That was mistaken. Some had 60-month minimum 

sentences, several more had 120-month minimums, and one topped out at a 300-

month minimum. 
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The district court also stated that the data was “information [it] 

consider[ed,] . . . a data point . . . [to] avoid[] unwarranted sentencing disparities.” 

Having all but admitted that the search influenced its decision to impose a 179-

month sentence, I would remand for resentencing. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6) 

(requiring district courts to consider “unwarranted sentenc[ing] disparities among 

defendants”). In the language of the plain-error standard, it made a “clear” or 

“obvious” error that, by the court’s own words, affected McDaniel’s substantial 

rights. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734 (1993); cf. United States v. Shell, 

23 F.4th 803, 807 (8th Cir. 2022) (Stras, J., concurring in the judgment) (agreeing 

that the sentence should stand on plain-error review because no one could identify 

“the source, time frame, or dataset used” at sentencing).

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