Interesting 7th Circuit Case Regarding 5K1.1 Motions

-
The Sentencing Law and Policy Blog points us to this interesting Seventh Circuit case - U.S. v. Knox (7th Cir. July 20, 2009). The case contains the following statement, "We agree with Davis that, as a general matter, a district court may consider a defendant's cooperation with the government as a basis for a reduced sentence, even if the government has not made a section 5K1.1 motion."

According to Professor Berman:
In the immediate wake of Booker, federal prosecutors often contested and/or complained if a district judge sought to reduce a [sentence] based on a defendant's cooperation absent a government 5K motion. In the wake of Gall and Kimbrough, I do not believe federal prosecutors still resist the notion that a district court's sentencing authority extends this far. Nevertheless, the fact that the Seventh Circuit expressly declares in this new ruling that a "defendant’s cooperation with the government as a basis for a reduced sentence" even absent a government motion seems noteworthy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Korea Considering Adopting Plea Bargaining System

-
According to the Korea Times , South Korea is considering implementation of a plea bargaining system, and the lead prosecutor has stated that the system would initially be utilized for corruption cases. If these plans move forward, this will offer a unique opportunity to observe a criminal justice system's implementation of plea bargaining from the beginning. The prosecution is seeking to adopt plea-bargaining for corruption cases. Prosecutor General Lim Chae-jin stressed the importance of criminal law reform, including the introduction of a plea bargaining system, at the prosecution's 60th anniversary ceremony held in southern Seoul, Friday. "It is time for Korea's judiciary to adopt plea-bargaining to a limited extent, such as in bribery cases, in order to effectively punish corruption, which is getting more complex,'' Lim said. Plea-bargaining is an agreement whereby the prosecution offers a lighter punishment to a criminal suspect in exchange for admitting
Read more

The Pursuit Podcast - Pressured to Plead Guilty

-
Readers of this blog will be interested to listen to the recently released podcast from The Pursuit  entitled "Pressured to Plead Guilty." In the podcast, I offer thoughts on the role of plea bargaining in the modern American criminal justice system. The podcast also features  Clark Neily (Vice President for Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute), Kevin Ring (President of Families Against Mandatory Minimums), and Molly Gill (Vice President of Policy at Families Against Mandatory Minimums).  The podcast does a wonderful job of weaving together  policy considerations and the history of plea bargaining with the story of  Kevin Ring's difficult decision whether to take a plea deal in return for a significant offer of leniency.  Thank you to Landry Ayres and the Cato Institute for putting together such an informative and engaging discussion of plea bargaining. It was an honor to appear on the program. As I said in my closing thoughts during the podcast, "[W]e think
Read more

New Article Explores the Psychology of False Pleas of Guilty

-
In a new article authored by Prof. Lucian Dervan, Dr. Vanessa Edkins, and Prof. Thea Johnson, the authors explore the forces that lead to false pleas of guilty through examination of two cases of serial offenders who remained undetected for significant periods of time in part because others were initially coerced into false pleas of guilty in the cases.  Access a free copy of the article here . From the introduction: The last decade has seen significant growth in academic research and literature related to the plea bargaining system. In particular, much research has explored the impact of plea bargaining on the accused, including the phenomena of false guilty pleas by the innocent and false testimony in return for bargains. Both false guilty pleas and false testimony often result from the coercive bargaining practices regularly found in the criminal system. Plea bargaining is coercive when it overbears the will of the defendant, to borrow a phrase from the Supreme Court’s decision in B
Read more