The Plea Bargaining Blog

In a vote of 7-2 in the case of Puckett v. United States , the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that where federal prosecutors violated a plea bargain with an accused, the violation must be preserved at the trial court level to avoid the application of Rule 52(b). James Puckett was indicted for bank robbery in July 2002. He later negotiated a plea agreement with the government in which he agreed to plead guilty in return for the government agreeing to a reduction in his guideline offense level for acceptance of responsibility and a sentence at the lowest end of the applicable guideline range. Prior to sentencing, however, Puckett assisted in a scheme to defraud the postal service. When sentencing took place, the government opposed any reductions in Puckett's offense level for acceptance of responsibility. The district court then determined that even if it could grant the reduction, it would not. At no time did Puckett's counsel object to the government's new position....

Madoff has pleaded guilty to all eleven counts. Here is a description of the events by the New York Times . Standing before Judge Denny Chin in United States District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Madoff was asked, “How do you now plead to the information, guilty or not guilty?” “Guilty,” he responded. The hearing on Thursday marks the first time since he was arrested by federal agents on Dec. 11 that Mr. Madoff has spoken publicly about how he ran what was perhaps the largest fraud in Wall Street history, a global scheme that ensnared hedge funds, nonprofit groups and celebrities, and devastated the life savings of thousands of people. Dressed in a gray suit, Mr. Madoff, 70, stood up in a courtroom packed with journalists, lawyers and some of his victims and pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud,money laundering, perjury and theft — charges whose maximum sentences total 150 years. Mr. Madoff then answered questions about how he sustained a 20-year fraud whose collapse erased as much as $65 ...

Bloomberg has gathered some of the details regarding the plea agreement Madoff will enter on Thursday.  According to the reports, Madoff will plead guilty to eleven criminal charges related to a fraud that prosecutors state began in the 1980s.  By last November, Madoff told 4,800 investors their accounts held $64.8 billion, according to court papers filed in Manhattan federal court. Prosecutors will seek forfeiture from Madoff of as much as $170 billion. Madoff, free on $10 million bail, faces 150 years in prison. “There is no plea agreement,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt said at hearing today before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin. Madoff, originally charged with a sole count of securities fraud, will plead guilty to that charge and an additional 10 counts filed today in a so-called criminal information, defense attorney Ira Sorkin said. The new charges are investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings...

According to MSNBC , prosecutors have filed a motion that indicates Bernard Madoff may be preparing to plead guilty to charges related to one of the largest frauds in history. The indication came in a brief filed with the court that stated Madoff is waiving indictment, a potential sign that a deal is in the works. NBC's Pete Williams, citing an unnamed law enforcement official, said Madoff may plead guilty next week. The official said under the terms of the deal, Madoff will serve prison time and be required to help the government put together a full accounting of what happened. The filing was the latest sign pointing toward a possible plea deal with Madoff, who has been confined to his Manhattan penthouse since his arrest in December. Madoff has never contested the allegations and recently surrendered millions of dollars in major assets, actions that typically precede plea deals. Investigators have spent the last three months trying to untangle Madoff's complicated financial o...

The Washington Post reports that a Dutch national accused of planting roadside bombs in Iraq is expected to plead guilty today. The case represents the first prosecution of an alleged Iraqi insurgent in a U.S. Courtroom. Wesam al-Delaema, 36, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington on charges that include conspiring to murder U.S. citizens and possessing a destructive device during a crime of violence. . . . [Delaema] was arrested by Dutch authorities in May 2005 and extradited to the United States in early 2007. Authorities have alleged that Delaema traveled to Iraq in 2003 and was a member of the group Mujaheddin From Fallujah, which deployed roadside bombs. On a videotape seized from his Dutch home, Delaema and other alleged insurgents were shown making, planting and discussing explosives intended to harm U.S. troops operating near Fallujah, authorities have said. On the video, Delaema said in Arabic that "we have executed several operations, and most of them were s...

Doug Berman over at the Sentencing Law and Policy blog has an interesting post regarding a National Law Journal article about a federal judge who has defied the DOJ's wishes and ordered all plea agreements to be posted online. Here is a portion of the National Law Journal article. Chief Judge Federico Moreno of the Southern District of Florida, bucking the wishes of the U.S. Department of Justice, has ordered all plea agreements to be posted online. In an order issued on Jan. 22, Moreno stated that as of Feb. 20, all plea agreements "will be public documents, with full remote access available to all members of the public and the bar, unless the Court has entered an order in advance directing the sealing or otherwise restricting a plea agreement." Moreno's order rescinds a previous order of April 2007 taking all plea agreements offline and making them accessible for physical viewing only at the courthouse. The issue of whetherplea agreements should be publicly avail...

According to the Argus Leader , South Dakota may soon get post-conviction DNA testing. Some inmates in the state prison system could have DNA evidence tested to determine whether they were wrongly convicted if a bill in the Legislature becomes law. House Bill 1166, introduced Wednesday, has four Republican sponsors in the House and two Republicans and one Democrat in the Senate. The bill would let felony convicts petition for DNA testing if the evidence exists and if there were questions about identity in their prosecutions. The bill has the backing of the local chapter of the Innocence Project, a national group that has pushed to expand post-conviction DNA testing at the state and federal level. Evidence lockers across the nation contain evidence of rapes and murders that were committed before science enabled investigators to use DNA to identify perpetrators. DNA testing has enabled law enforcement agencies across the nation to solve old cases. But the tests also have helped those who...