NOT GUILTY, STILL PUNISHED.

• Author: Binion, Billy
• Position: CIVIL LIBERTIES

IN 2015, WHEN he was 17, Dayonta McClinton and five accomplices robbed a CVS pharmacy in Indiana at gunpoint. Federal prosecutors also alleged that McClinton shot and killed one of his accomplices, Malik Perry, during a dispute after the robbery. A jury convicted McClinton of robbing the pharmacy and brandishing a gun during that crime but acquitted him of robbing and killing Perry.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt nevertheless granted the government's request that McClinton serve time for causing Perry's death. Taking into account his prior criminal record, the sentencing guidelines recommended a prison term of 57 to 71 months for the convictions. McClinton instead received a sentence of 228 months--19 years. Pratt said Perry's murder was "the driving force in this sentence."

The case vividly illustrates how defendants can be punished for crimes even when a jury finds them not guilty of those offenses. A conviction requires the government to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But federal judges can sentence defendants for acquitted conduct if they determine it is more likely than not that they committed additional crimes.

Critics say that practice violates the Fifth Amendment's due process guarantee and the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. The Supreme Court could resolve those questions if it agrees to hear Dayonta McClinton v. United States.

Despite the Court's conservative bent, it may be receptive to McClinton's appeal. When the Court declined to hear a similar appeal in 2014, Justice Clarence Thomas...