Does a presumption of reasonableness of Guidelines sentences under Rita preclude a finding of substantive unreasonableness in a maximum guideline sentence for a brief nonviolent offense by a defendant whose life encompasses strong mitigating facts?

This Court established appellate review to of “substantively unreasonable” federal prison sentences in United States v. Booker. In Rita v. United States, it held that Circuit Courts of Appeals could grant a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness to a district court’s choice of a sentence within the advisory Sentencing Guidelines range. Mr. Robinson pled guilty to possessing his girlfriend’s gun for an hour before he returned it. He urged a low-range guideline term of 51 months citing the brief non-violent nature of his acts, his persisting mental and emotional impairment from childhood lead-poisoning, violent abuse by his family and his loss of a murdered brother. The Court imposed a maximum guideline term of 71 months adopting the Government’s rationale that Mr. Robinson should not get to repeatedly seek a reduced sentence based on childhood adversity. No evidence indicated he had ever requested or received leniency for his childhood abuse and lead poisoning in his prior teenage offenses in a state court having no mandate to consider a defendant’s “history and characteristics” or to impose a term “sufficient, but not greater than necessary” to achieve sentencing goals in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). On appeal, Petitioner argued his maximum sentence for minimal conduct was “substantively unreasonable” and contrary to this Court’s precedents in Booker, Rita, and Gall. The Government stressed the “presumption of reasonableness” of any Guidelines sentence and urged the Eighth Circuit to dismiss Mr. Robinson’s claim as a “mere disagreement” on the weight warranted by Section 3553(a)(1)’s sentencing factors. This case raises this issue: 1. Does a presumption of reasonableness of Guidelines sentences under Rita preclude a finding of substantive unreasonableness in a maximum guideline sentence for a brief nonviolent offense by a defendant whose life encompasses strong mitigating facts? 2