Whether Rifa's presumption of reasonableness is, in practice, effectively binding and not rebuttable, and whether the 15-year, within-Guidelines sentence imposed on this defendant, an undisputed drug addict with nearly no criminal history who helped transport a load of drugs, is substantively unreasonable?

QUESTION PRESENTED In Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007), this Court held that an appellate court could presume that a sentence is also substantively reasonable. The Court recognized, however, that this presumption was not binding, and was subject to rebuttal. But in the decade since Rita, the majority of the circuit courts of appeals have never found this presumption of reasonableness rebutted. The question presented is: Whether Rifa’s presumption of reasonableness is, in practice, effectively binding and not rebuttable, and whether the 15-year, within-Guidelines sentence imposed on this defendant, an undisputed drug addict with nearly no criminal history who helped transport a load of drugs, is substantively unreasonable? i