United States of America v. Johnathan Byars

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued June 4, 2025
Decided June 13, 2025
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
Nos. 24-2276, 24-2277, & 24-2278
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JOHNATHAN BYARS,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeals from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Western Division.
Nos. 3:20-cr-50020-1, 3:21-cr-50057-1,
& 3:21-cr-50058-1
Philip G. Reinhard,
Judge.
O R D E R
In this consolidated appeal, Johnathan Byars challenges the substantive
reasonableness of the 300-month sentence that he received for committing a spree of
armed robberies and brandishing a gun.† He argues that although the district court
† Byars was charged for these robberies in three separate cases and accepted a
plea deal that resolved each of the cases. He later was sentenced at a consolidated
hearing.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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Nos. 24-2276, 24-2277, & 24-2278 Page 2
considered all his arguments, it “improperly weighed the mitigating factors” and
should have run his federal sentence concurrent to an undischarged state sentence for
unrelated charges. We conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion on either
issue, so we affirm.
Byars, along with different groups of accomplices, robbed or attempted to rob
eight cellphone stores across Illinois from April 2019 through February 2020. These
crimes were serious: the robberies often involved guns, threats of violence at gunpoint,
and physically restraining the employees of the stores. In total, the robberies resulted in
an estimated loss of $109,006.37. Byars eventually pleaded guilty to three counts of
Hobbs Act robbery, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), and one count of brandishing a firearm during a
crime of violence, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii). He also stipulated that he committed the
five other robberies charged in the counts to which he did not plead guilty.
Apart from this spree of robberies, Bryars violently stole two vehicles in January
2020. When stealing the first car, he pushed the owner out while the car was moving,
causing significant injuries. He used force during the other carjacking as well, though
the details are unclear. For these incidents, he eventually pleaded guilty in state court to
attempted first-degree murder and vehicular hijacking, and he was sentenced to
156 months in prison. Neither stolen car was used in the phone-store robberies.
At Byars’s sentencing hearing, both parties agreed that Byars faced a total federal
sentence of 272 to 319 months under the Sentencing Guidelines. His robberies resulted
in a guidelines range of 188 to 235 months based on a total offense level of 31 and a
criminal history category of VI, and the brandishing conviction required an additional
consecutive sentence of at least 84 months. 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii), (c)(1)(D).
The government argued for a sentence at the high end of the range to be served
consecutively with the state sentence that Byars had not yet begun serving. It argued
that the armed robberies were dangerous and serious offenses, and that Byars’s criminal
history reflected an ongoing lack of respect for the law and the public. It also
highlighted that Byars had significant disciplinary issues while in pretrial detention
(over 65 citations for both minor rule violations and more serious ones, such as
masturbating, exposing himself to jail staff, and possessing contraband).
Byars requested a below-guidelines sentence of 168 to 192 months to run
concurrently with his state sentence. He argued that a lower sentence was justified
because he had been physically and sexually abused for many years as a minor and
because he had an intellectual disability. In support of his argument, he provided a

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Nos. 24-2276, 24-2277, & 24-2278 Page 3
clinical intelligence evaluation from when he was 11 years old showing that he had an
IQ of 48, “[e]xtremely [l]ow” intellectual functioning, and “significant impairment” in
his cognitive abilities. Byars (who was 21 and 22 years old during the robberies) also
contended that his youth granted him the potential to mature and rehabilitate himself.
The district court sentenced Byars to 300 months’ imprisonment: concurrent
216-month sentences for each of the three robbery charges, plus an 84-month sentence
for the brandishing charge. Justifying this sentence, the court explained that the
robberies were very serious offenses—most involved weapons and threats of violence
toward the store employees—and that because of their menacing nature, a significant
sentence was needed to protect the public. The court further observed that deterrence
and promoting respect for the law were significant factors, in part because the court
“ha[d] never seen so many” disciplinary violations by a defendant during pretrial
detention. Although the court also considered Byars’s history of being abused and his
intellectual disability as mitigating, it concluded that the “mitigating circumstances
[were] far outweighed by the aggravating circumstances.” The court then announced
that Byars’s federal sentence would run consecutively with his state sentence because a
concurrent sentence would effectively “reduce [the] punishment” for the serious state
crime of attempted murder.
Byars now challenges the substantive reasonableness of his within-guidelines
sentence, which is presumed reasonable on appeal. United States v. Porraz, 943 F.3d 1099,
1104 (7th Cir. 2019) (citing United States v. Gonzalez, 765 F.3d 732, 740 (7th Cir. 2014)). He
argues that a 300-month sentence, run consecutively to his 156-month state sentence, is
greater than necessary to serve the goals of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) because of the mitigating
factors in this case: his intellectual disability, childhood abuse, and potential for
rehabilitation. We review a sentence’s substantive reasonableness for abuse of
discretion. Porraz, 943 F.3d at 1104 (citing United States v. Gill, 889 F.3d 373, 378 (7th Cir.
2018)).
Byars’s challenge to his 300-month sentence fails because he does no more than
second guess how the district court weighed the § 3553(a) factors. We will not
“substitute our judgment” for that of a district court so long as the court’s explanation
was consistent with the § 3553(a) factors. Porraz, 943 F.3d at 1104 (first citing United
States v. Wachowiak, 496 F.3d 744, 751 (7th Cir. 2007); then citing United States v.
Melendez, 819 F.3d 1006, 1013 (7th Cir. 2016)). And here, it was. Despite the mitigating
factors in Byars’s favor, the court permissibly concluded that the significant aggravating
factors—namely, the number and severity of Byars’s crimes along with his disciplinary
history as a detainee—warranted a sentence at the higher end of the guidelines range.

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Nos. 24-2276, 24-2277, & 24-2278 Page 4
The district court also acted within its discretion by running the federal and state
sentences consecutively. Consecutive sentences are allowed when the state crimes are
unrelated to the federal crimes, U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(d), and running the sentences
consecutively is presumed correct when they are imposed at different times, United
States v. Hubbert, 35 F.4th 1068, 1074 (7th Cir. 2022) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a)). Both
circumstances are present here. Further, to justify a consecutive sentence, the court may
address just a single sentencing factor; it need not provide a factor-by-factor discussion.
See United States v. Orozco-Sanchez, 814 F.3d 844, 849 (7th Cir. 2016). The court’s
explanation here—that running the sentences concurrently would diminish the
punishment for the serious crime of attempted murder—adequately justified its
decision.
AFFIRMED

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