In the

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 20-2361 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

LYNARD JOINER, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Central District of Illinois. 

No. 16-cr-30016 — Sue E. Myerscough, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED JANUARY 26, 2021 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 23, 2021 

____________________ 

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and KIRSCH,

Circuit Judges. 

KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. Lynard Joiner appeals the district 

court’s denial of his motion for compassionate release under 

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). On appeal, he raises one issue: 

whether the district court procedurally erred by not specifically addressing his argument that his skin color “elevates 

his risk from COVID-19.” In the district court, Joiner supported this contention by citing to three articles discussing 
2 No. 20-2361 

disparities in health care outcomes based on race. Those articles, however, pointed to a multitude of societal factors that 

are not relevant to Joiner’s individual situation in federal 

prison. Extrapolating direct relevance to Joiner’s situation 

requires leaps of logic that do not necessarily follow from 

the broad societal information he presented. Without any 

factual basis tying these broader societal concerns to Joiner’s 

individual situation, the district court was not required to 

address the argument. Thus, because the district court did 

not procedurally err, we affirm.

I.

Joiner is a 31-year-old federal prisoner serving an eightyear sentence at U.S. Penitentiary Marion for possession of 

cocaine base with the intent to distribute. See 21 U.S.C. § 

841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C). In July 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Joiner moved for compassionate release under 18 

U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). He offered three “extraordinary and 

compelling reasons,” § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), for release: selfreported hypertension, a body mass index of 28.9 (the 

“overweight” category), and his skin color (“brown”), which 

he says is “seen as ‘black.’” For his third point, he argued 

that Black Americans have disproportionately suffered from 

COVID-19, not because of “weak biology,” but because “society has put them in worse positions.” He cited an article 

from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to argue that Black people in the United States face a higher risk 

of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. He also relied 

on two other articles to contend that, even though skin color 

should not affect health outcomes from infectious diseases, 

“our society” delivers subpar health care to “people with 
No. 20-2361 3

black skin,” even when controlling for class, comorbidities, 

and access to health insurance. 

The government opposed the motion. It argued that Joiner failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. See § 

3582(c)(1)(A). (It does not press this argument on appeal.) On 

the merits, it contended that Joiner’s medical records did not 

contain evidence of hypertension and, according to the CDC, 

his body mass index did not place him at “high risk” for severe COVID-19 complications. The government did not respond to Joiner’s society-wide racial disparities argument.

The district court ruled that Joiner did not present extraordinary and compelling reasons for release. While observing that Joiner’s prison had thirteen confirmed COVID19 cases, it concluded that Joiner did not show that he was at 

an elevated risk for severe complications from the virus because he was relatively young, he had no documented hypertension, and his body mass index was not an increased 

risk factor, per CDC guidance. The court did not comment 

on Joiner’s argument that based on societal factors Black 

Americans have disproportionately been affected by the virus. 

II.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), a district court may 

grant an inmate’s request for early release based on “extraordinary and compelling reasons,” provided that the inmate first submits a request to the Bureau of Prisons. Unit-ed 

States v. Gunn, 980 F.3d 1178, 1179, 1181 (7th Cir. 2020). The 

exhaustion requirement is mandatory when properly invoked. United States v. Sanford, 986 F.3d 779, 780 (7th Cir. 

2021). But because the requirement is non-jurisdictional, the 
4 No. 20-2361 

government loses the benefit of this affirmative defense 

when, as here, it does not press the defense on appeal. Id. at 

782. 

Joiner maintains that the district court procedurally erred 

when it silently passed over his third contention for release—that his skin color elevated his risk of complications 

from COVID-19. For purposes of this appeal, the parties 

have assumed that we review this contention of procedural 

error under the same standard that we use when a party asserts a procedural error in sentencing. See United States v. 

Cunningham, 429 F.3d 673, 679 (7th Cir. 2005).1 Cunningham requires a court to address each of the movant’s principal arguments, unless they are “too weak to require discussion” or “without factual foundation.” United States v. 

Rosales, 813 F.3d 634, 637 (7th Cir. 2016). Under this standard, to re-quire discussion the arguments must be “individualized to the facts” of the movant’s case. See United States 

v. Hancock, 825 F.3d 340, 344 (7th Cir. 2016). 

Under Cunningham, the district court did not procedurally err in silently passing over Joiner’s argument. First, Joiner contended, citing a CDC article, that COVID-19 has 

caused “a disproportionate burden of illness and death 

among racial and ethnic minority groups.” That disproportionate burden, the article states, may stem from societal living and working conditions among racial and ethnic minority groups, including that minorities may more com1 We do not decide that we must always review claims of procedural 

error from denials of motions for compassionate release under the same 

standard as claims of procedural error at sentencing. See, e.g., Gunn, 980 

F.3d at 1181 (suggesting deferential review of district court orders deciding motions for compassionate release).
No. 20-2361 5

monly live in densely populated areas, farther from medical 

care, and work in essential businesses that have remained 

open during the pandemic. This article, which discusses the 

disparity in terms of societal living and working conditions 

among minority groups, does not provide a factual foundation for the argument that Black federal prisoners are at 

higher risk of severe COVID-19 complications than prisoners 

of other races. As such, the court did not need to address 

Joiner’s contention. 

Second, Joiner did not submit evidence that his perceived skin color renders him especially vulnerable to the 

virus in prison or at Marion. He concedes that his skin color 

does not make him more biologically susceptible to COVID19. Rather, he assumes that the community data that he cites 

about racial disparities in health care, infections, hospitalization, and deaths from COVID-19 are mirrored at Marion. But 

in the district court he offered no evidence to support this 

assumption. Likewise, on appeal, he could not point to any 

evidence or data on COVID-19 susceptibility or outcome 

disparities in prison based on race. Broadly, Joiner’s assumption ignores that variables in the community that might 

affect COVID-19 susceptibility and outcomes may not vary 

in prison. In prison, inmates generally live and work in the 

same environment, and they receive health care in the same 

setting. Moreover, medical providers to federal prisons are 

subject to legal constraints and obligations that may not apply to providers in the community. None of Joiner’s materials acknowledged or discussed these differences. Without 

any data or a factual foundation connecting generalized societal disparities in health care susceptibility or outcome to 

Joiner’s individualized circumstances at Marion (or even 
6 No. 20-2361 

federal prisons generally), the district court was not required 

to discuss Joiner’s racial disparity argument.

In reply, Joiner argues that prison health care is not entirely independent of society. Prisons hire workers from the 

community, and from there, he argues, they may bring to 

the prison their racial biases in delivering care. But, as discussed, by relying on generalized evidence of broad societal 

concerns, Joiner did not provide the court with any basis to 

make that determination, and therefore, the district court 

was not required to address this argument. 

Nothing prevented the district court from pointing out 

that Joiner did not furnish evidence connecting his societal 

disparities arguments to his individual situation in prison. 

But such statement was not needed “for meaningful appellate review.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 50 (2007). By 

discussing the two issues that Joiner did develop (his selfreported hypertension and body mass index), the court adequately explained why Joiner did not present extraordinary 

and compelling reasons for release. See United States v. 

Castaldi, 743 F.3d 589, 595 (7th Cir. 2014) (“[T]he district

judge made his thinking clear enough.”).

Finally, Joiner argues that the government has waived its 

substantive arguments relating to how racial disparities in 

health care should be interpreted in this case. He correctly 

observes that in the district court the government did not 

counter Joiner’s racial-disparity argument. But if the district 

court did not need to respond to the argument as factually 

unfounded, neither did the government. In any event, the 

government responded to Joiner’s procedural challenge at its 

earliest opportunity—on appeal where Joiner first raised it. 

Cf. Prop. & Cas. Ins. v. Cent. Nat’l Ins. Co. of Omaha, 936 
No. 20-2361 7

F.2d 319, 323 n.7 (7th Cir. 1991) (no waiver when party had 

first opportunity to brief an issue on appeal). Thus, the government did not waive its argument.

AFFIRMED.