Opinion ID: 3046017
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: standard of review

Text: On appeal, Hoffman raises two issues. Hoffman first argues that his mandatory life sentence as to Counts 1 and 10 constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment because the basis for the statutory enhancement was two prior convictions for offenses Hoffman committed when he was 17 years old. Second, Hoffman argues that his sentence was unreasonable because the district court considered only the amount of methamphetamine and the prior drug convictions, and failed to consider the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors.4 Because Hoffman failed to raise either issue in the district court, we review 4 Hoffman does not challenge his 262-month sentence on Counts 7 and 8. 6 Case: 12-11529 Date Filed: 02/26/2013 Page: 7 of 12 both issues for plain error. See United States v. Patterson, 595 F.3d 1324, 1326 (11th Cir. 2010) (“Where the defendant has failed to raise [an] issue below, we review for plain error.”). “Plain error requires the defendant to show: (1) an error; (2) that is plain; (3) that affects substantial rights; and (4) that seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. “An error is not plain unless it is contrary to explicit statutory provisions or to on-point precedent in this Court or the Supreme Court.” United States v. Schultz, 565 F.3d 1353, 1357 (11th Cir. 2009). B. Eighth Amendment Challenge to Use of Juvenile Drug Convictions Section 841(b)(1)(A) provides that if a person with “two or more prior convictions for a felony drug offense” is convicted for possessing with intent to distribute 50 or more grams of methamphetamine (or conspiring to do so, see 21 U.S.C. § 846), he “shall be sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment.” 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(viii). Hoffman does not dispute that his 1986 state cocaine possession, delivery, and trafficking conspiracy convictions qualify as “prior convictions for a felony drug offense” under § 841(b)(1)(A). Instead, he argues that because he committed the state drug offenses while he was a juvenile, imposing a mandatory life sentence based upon those offenses violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 7 Case: 12-11529 Date Filed: 02/26/2013 Page: 8 of 12 Hoffman has not met his burden of showing plain error. Hoffman cites Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 125 S. Ct. 1183 (2005), in which the Supreme Court held that the “Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.” Id. at 568, 578, 125 S. Ct. at 1194, 1200. Roper is inapposite for several reasons. First, Roper concerned imposition of the death penalty, not life imprisonment. See id. at 568, 125 S. Ct. at 1194 (noting that the Eighth Amendment applies in death penalty cases “with special force”). Furthermore, Roper did not involve sentence enhancement for an adult offender. In United States v. Wilks, 464 F.3d 1240, 1242–43 (11th Cir. 2006), this Court rejected a challenge based on Roper to the use of youthful offender convictions as predicate offenses to enhance a sentence under the career offender sentencing guideline and the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The Wilks Court reasoned: Roper does not deal specifically—or even tangentially—with sentence enhancement. It is one thing to prohibit capital punishment for those under the age of eighteen, but an entirely different thing to prohibit consideration of prior youthful offenses when sentencing criminals who continue their illegal activity into adulthood. Roper does not mandate that we wipe clean the records of every criminal on his or her eighteenth birthday. Wilks, 464 F.3d at 1243. 8 Case: 12-11529 Date Filed: 02/26/2013 Page: 9 of 12 Hoffman argues that Wilks is distinguishable because it did not involve imposition of a life sentence. But even assuming this is so, Hoffman cites no binding authority that holds that a mandatory life sentence based in part upon prior juvenile offenses violates the Eighth Amendment. Further, this Court has twice held that § 841(b)(1)(A)’s imposition of a mandatory life sentence on defendants with two or more prior convictions for a felony drug offense does not violate the Eighth Amendment. See United States v. Lopez, 649 F.3d 1222, 1248 (11th Cir. 2011); United States v. Willis, 956 F.2d 248, 251 (11th Cir. 1992).5 Hoffman points to Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. —, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2460 (2012), in which the Supreme Court recently held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a mandatory life-without-parole sentence for defendants who were under age 18 when they committed the crime. But Miller is inapposite because it involved a juvenile offender facing punishment for a crime committed when he was a juvenile, and thus it focused on the reasons why it would be cruel and unusual for a juvenile to face a mandatory life sentence. See id. at —, 132 S. Ct. at 2464–68. Nothing in Miller suggests that an adult offender who has committed prior crimes as a juvenile should not receive a mandatory life sentence as an adult, 5 Neither Lopez nor Willis mentions the age of the defendant at the time of the predicate felony drug offenses. See Lopez, 649 F.3d at 1248; Willis, 956 F.2d at 251. 9 Case: 12-11529 Date Filed: 02/26/2013 Page: 10 of 12 after committing a further crime as an adult. As we said of Roper in Wilks, the Supreme Court in Miller did “not deal specifically—or even tangentially—with sentence enhancement,” and it is a far different thing to prohibit sentencing a juvenile offender to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole than it is “to prohibit consideration of prior youthful offenses when sentencing criminals who continue their illegal activity into adulthood.” Wilks, 464 F.3d at 1243. Hoffman has not met his burden of showing on-point precedent holding that the Eighth Amendment prohibits using juvenile felony drug convictions to enhance to life imprisonment an adult defendant’s sentence for a crime he committed as an adult. Thus, Hoffman has not shown that the district court committed plain error.