182800P.pdf   08/11/2020  United States  v.  Howard Ross, III
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  18-2800
                          and No:  18-2877
   U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City   
   [PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Stras, Circuit 
   Judge] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. The evidence was sufficient 
   to support defendants' convictions for carjacking and kidnapping that 
   ended in felony murder - a violation of U.S.C. Sec. 2119 constitutes a 
   crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 924(c), and the defendants were 
   properly convicted under Sec. 924(j) of causing death through use of a 
   firearm in the course of carjacking; evidence was sufficient to support 
   defendant Ross's conviction for kidnapping, for carjacking resulting in 
   death, for using a firearm in furtherance of a carjacking resulting in 
   felony murder, and for being a felon in possession of a firearm; no error 
   in admitting a text between defendants suggesting they commit a robbery as 
   it proves an agreement to commit the charged offenses; no error in 
   refusing to give defendant Ross's proposed instruction on eyewitness 
   testimony or defendant King's proposed instruction on the defense of 
   duress; the requirement of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 924(c)(1)(D) that a life 
   sentence for using a firearm must run consecutive to mandatory life terms 
   for other offenses in not an Eighth Amendment violation; defendant King's 
   argument that his sentence is substantively unreasonable because he was 
   less culpable than defendant Ross rejected. Judge Stras, concurring in the 
   judgment and dissenting in part.