Youngstown Daily Legal News

Citing high risk of reoffending, court affirms sentence for intellectually disabled felon

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 1, 2015

The 6th U.S. CIrcuit Court of Appeals fecently ruled that a lower court properly considered a defendant’s low intellectual functioning before sentencing him to more than eight years in prison for carrying a stolen firearm.

The defendant, Jayson Mitchell, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Case summary states that, on April 17, 2014, officers from the Cleveland Police Department received a report that a man was observed walking with a gun in his waistband on W. 48th Street in Cleveland.

Responding to the report, officers approached Mitchell, who was walking down the sidewalk.

However, when Mitchell saw the police, he ran down the street and tossed a firearm onto the roof of a nearby building.

Mitchell was eventually caught and the firearm was recovered from the roof. A check of the gun’s serial number revealed that it had been stolen.

Based on his conduct and prior felony convictions in state courts, Mitchell was charged by grand jury with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

He pleaded guilty without the benefit of an agreement with the government.

At his sentencing, Mitchell did not contest the facts in his presentence investigation report which revealed, among other things, that Mitchell’s mother used drugs heavily while she was pregnant with her son.

The PSR also detailed Mitchell’s history of mental illness and diagnoses of depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD along with a history of substance abuse.

Mitchell’s cognitive scores were “generally in the low average range of an intellectually disabled person” and other assessments established that he had an IQ of 68, which is within the range of intellectual disability.

According to the PSR, Mitchell’s mother stated that she believes that Mitchell’s intellectual functioning is directly related to her drug abuse during her pregnancy.

The probation office calculated Mitchell’s sentencing range to be between 92 and 115 months of imprisonment, taking into account both his criminal history, mental disabilities and his acceptance of responsibility. It recommended 110 months of imprisonment.

But, prior to sentencing, Mitchell submitted a memorandum asking the district court for a downward departure from the guidelines sentencing range because of his personal history and low intellectual functioning.

In support of his memorandum, Mitchell cited a psychological report authored by Dr. Sandra McPherson, who reviewed Mitchell’s records and performed additional psychological assessments.

Based on her evaluation, Dr. McPherson determined that Mitchell has significant intellectual limitations “which are likely, at least in part, the result of gestational exposure to crack cocaine.”

Mitchell’s mother addressed the court and Mitchell’s counsel argued “emphatically,” according to court documents, that his client’s mental conditions and lack of treatment established a basis for a downward variance in sentencing.

The district court, before announcing the sentence, stated that it had carefully reviewed the PSR and it acknowledged Mitchell’s mental health issues stating that the “cognitive impairments ... are certainly important for the court to note and certainly have some bearing” on Mitchell’s past conduct.

However, the district court denied the motion for a downward variance relying primarily on the fact that Mitchell had been referred to psychiatrists in the past and that it had done little to change his behavior.

The court stated that Mitchell has a long criminal history with a substantial number of violent offenses and that he “knows right from wrong.”

It sentenced Mitchell to 100 months in federal prison.

On appeal to the 6th Circuit court, Mitchell argued that the district court’s sentence was substantively unreasonable because it failed to adequately account for his low intellectual functioning. The court of appeals found little merit to his claim.

“When a court weighs all pertinent factors, a defendant clearly bears a much greater burden in arguing that the court has given an unreasonable amount of weight to any particular one,” Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote on behalf of the three-judge appellate panel. “Mitchell fails to meet this burden.”

The appellate panel noted that the district court weighed all of the relevant sentencing factors and it discussed, at length, Mitchell’s intellectual shortcomings, his “deprived upbringing” and his mental and emotional issues.

“Indeed, the district court spent significant time during the sentencing hearing discussing Mitchell’s arguments for a downward variance, even recessing the hearing so he could review additional materials relating to Mitchell’s prior conditions of community control and opportunities for treatment,” Moore wrote. “The district court ultimately determined, however, that the balance of other factors weighed towards a sentence within the guidelines range.”

Specifically, the appellate panel pointed out that the district court considered Mitchell’s past, ineffective opportunities for treatment and his high risk of reoffending.

“And based on these findings, the district court determined that Mitchell’s low intellectual functioning was ‘overborne’ by the need to protect the public,” Moore wrote.

Despite Mitchell’s claim to the contrary, the court of appeals held that the district court’s decision did not “minimize” his disabilities.

On the contrary, it held that sentence was necessary in spite of those disabilities.

“Because the district court is in a better position to weigh these factors, this determination was not an abuse of discretion,” Moore concluded.

The judgment of the district court was affirmed with Judges Richard Suhrheinrich and Gregory Van Tatenhove, who sat by designation, concurring.

The case is cited United States v. Mitchell, case No. 14-4210.

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