Whether an appellate court reviewing a sentence for substantive reasonableness should consider, when presented, a comparison between the instant case and that of other defendants with similar characteristics convicted of similar offenses?

QUESTION PRESENTED This Court directed appellate courts to "consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed" when reviewing sentences. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). The intervening 14 years since Gall have led to confusion. Since Gall, members of the federal judiciary have called substantive reasonableness review “functionally nonexistent,” “no appellate review” at all, and a “waste of time.” In this case, Philip Friend presented comprehensive and detailed sentencing data, compiled and presented by a professor of law, on comparable cases — juveniles (Philip Friend was 15 at the time of the offense) convicted of murder. His 52-year sentence was an outlier and neither the district court nor the Fourth Circuit pointed to any particular aspects of his case that justified the disparity. The question presented is whether an appellate court reviewing a sentence for substantive reasonableness should consider, when presented, a comparison between the instant case and that of other defendants with similar characteristics convicted of similar offenses? -i