Whether a federal court commits plain error by anchoring a sentence for a juvenile's crime resulting in death to a Sentencing Guidelines that recommends only life-without parole where no claim or evidence suggests the defendant is irreparably corrupt?

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In 1998, an adult nicknamed Chupacabra used 16-year-old Leobardo Barraza to inveigle an adult woman he worked with into a road trip ostensibly to buy drugs in Mexico for which Chupacabra would pay her $40,000. Chupacabra instead intended to have sex with the woman. He raped her while making Leo hold her infant, and then killed her and the child. Leo fled and lived at large for eight years before his arrest. He matured into a peaceful and productive adult. At his trial for kidnapping, the United States got the judge to deny Leo’s request to require the jury to find an intent to kill. Federal law authorized only life in prison without parole at his 2010 sentencing. After this Court decided Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), a new judge anchored its sentencing choice to the United States Sentencing Guideline homicide range that advised only life in prison and imposed a 50 year sentence. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, while acknowledging the Guideline the district court applied granted took no account of the transient frailties of youth. In view of the foregoing, this petition presents this issue: Whether a federal court commits plain error by anchoring a sentence for a juvenile’s crime resulting in death to a Sentencing Guidelines that recommends only life-without parole where no claim or evidence suggests the defendant is irreparably corrupt? 2