UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. VICTOR EVERETTE SILVERS - Articles

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. VICTOR EVERETTE SILVERS

Posted by: Azya Thornton on Feb 20, 2025

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ARGUED: Sarah S. Gannett, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Phoenix, Arizona, for Appellant.

Attorneys 2: ARGUED: Terry M. Cushing, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee.

Attorneys 3: ON BRIEF: Sarah S. Gannett, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Phoenix, Arizona, for Appellant.

Attorneys 4: ON BRIEF: Terry M. Cushing, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee.

Judge(s): MOORE, CLAY, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Paducah

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. Brittney Silvers, an active member of the United States Army, was shot and killed while living on Fort Campbell, an Army base on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. A jury found Brittney’s estranged husband, Victor Silvers (“Silvers”), guilty of her premeditated murder. Following his conviction, the district court sentenced Silvers to life in prison. On appeal, Silvers challenges his conviction and sentence on three grounds. First, he argues that the district court erred in taking judicial notice of the fact that Fort Campbell was within the United States’ special maritime and territorial jurisdiction. Second, he argues that the district court abused its discretion in denying Silvers’s motion to exclude a juror who wore a shirt supporting military veterans during the trial and who had served in the United States Navy, and in failing to ask a broader question during voir dire about prospective jurors’ prior military service. Third, he challenges the constitutionality of his mandatory life sentence, arguing that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Because the district court did not err in taking judicial notice of the fact of the United States’ jurisdiction over Fort Campbell, nor did it abuse its discretion in denying Silvers relief based on Juror 5’s alleged bias, we AFFIRM his conviction. And because Silvers’s life sentence is constitutional under binding Supreme Court precedent, we also AFFIRM his sentence.

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