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Amicus NACDL urges the Court to grant this petition
and resolve the conflict among the circuits to ensure that
the government keeps its promises.
ARGUMENT
The Department of Justice (the "Department")
routinely limits the scope of its plea agreements to the
specific United States Attorney's Office (USAO) that is a
party to the agreement. Prosecutors in other districts and
other parts of the Department could therefore later charge
the defendant for the same or related conduct. Where,
as here, the government chooses not to adopt limiting
language, a court should not negate its bargained-for
promise to the defendant and instead enforce the language
as written. Amicus urges the Court to grant the petition
to resolve the split among the circuits and ensure that
defendants and their counsel can rely on the promises
made by the United States in its written agreements.
1. Defendants should be able to rely on the government's
promises and courts should not hesitate to enforce
them.
Like any party to any contract, defendants in criminal
cases rely on the promises made by the Department. And
defendants give up a lot in return. A defendant entering
into a plea agreement forgoes his constitutional right to a
trial by jury and right to appeal, faces the near certainty
of a prison sentence and loss of freedom, agrees to pay
financial penalties through fines and forfeiture, and faces
the myriad collateral effects of a criminal conviction after
serving the sentence.
DOJ-OGR-00000203