Resentencing; Reasonableness; Consideration of a defendant’s health issues; 18 USC § 924(c) (using or possessing a firearm in the course of drug trafficking or some other violent crime); United States v Davis

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court held that defendant-Johns’s sentence was reasonable where it was within the Guidelines range and the district court adequately explained why it did not impose a lower sentence based on her health problems. When the law rearrested Johns after her 16-year years on the lam, she was convicted and sentenced to 168 months for kidnapping, failing to appear following pretrial release, and for using or possessing a firearm in the course of drug trafficking or some other violent crime. The district court vacated her conviction for § 924(c) pursuant to Davis and resentenced her to 151 months on the other convictions. The Guidelines range for those convictions was 121 to 151 months. Johns argued that the district court’s sentence was procedurally unreasonable because it failed to “‘adequately explain’” why it did not impose a lower sentence based on her health problems (“‘severe back and foot pain’” and other conditions). But the court noted that, under plain error review, the district court was not required “to discuss generally Johns’s many arguments for mitigation” or required to “specifically address each potential ground she raised for leniency . . . .” It noted that “Johns’s recently developed health issues would never have been a subject at the resentencing hearing had Johns not absconded from justice for nearly 16 years, a period that well exceeded her final time to be served here. Put differently, had Johns never fled, her sentence would have finished before the onset of her health issues.” The court rejected her claim that her sentence was too long considering her health, explaining that sentences within the Guidelines are “presumptively reasonable,” and that it would not “second guess” the district court, which “thoughtfully considered the grave nature of Johns’s offenses and balanced those concerns against the mitigating arguments Johns raised to arrive at an appropriate sentence.” Affirmed