United States v. Dennis T. McDonald

I agree that McDonald’s conviction must be affirmed. I also agree that the trial judge’s statements at the sentencing hearing were problematic. But I cannot agree that the sentence was nonetheless properly imposed.

The majority begins by asserting that the Young Adult Offender statute does not require that the sentencing judge state his reasons when he denies an eligible offender such a sentence.1 I cannot agree. Nor do I think that United States v. Waters,2 where the sole statute *519at issue was the Youth Corrections Act, can be taken as having settled the question in its dicta.

But, more to the…