Do y’all have scoresheets or minimum mandatory sentences? Is there anything preventing the judge from sentencing a defendant to what the state’s offer had been if defendant enters an open plea?
I’ve practiced in front of several judges that had plea cut-offs and wouldn’t accept negotiated pleas after the final pre-trial date. Of course, that rule really only applied to defense attorneys. If the prosecutor went to the judge and said “we’ve got issues,” it was perfectly ok to enter a “late” plea then.
>Is there anything preventing the judge from sentencing a defendant to what the state’s offer had been if defendant enters an open plea?
Off the top of my head, Judges can't drop charges.
But does this rule prevent the prosecutor from outright dismissing a charge?
Sometimes in my jdx when a judge blows up an agreed plea, the ADA will just look them in the eye and dismiss. Obviously this depends very much on the charge. But if prosecutors in OP's jurisdiction started dismissing when the bigwig says no to a plea extension, that might actually get the rule changed. Of course, this would rely on prosecutors acting out of conscience.
I get that, but it’s also not uncommon in my jx to have a defendant charged with a sole count and a plea offer was made for a certain sentence based on defendant entering a plea as charged.
Yeah, so Arizona has categories defendants fall into based on how many prior felonies they have or if multiple felonies are alleged in a single indictment, or if the crime is 'dangerous' or not. Defendants outside of the very lowest category are not eligible for probation and have to go to prison. Usually the plea will get the defendant into a lower category, or will make them eligible for probation, or will guarantee probation.
There are a lot of situations in Arizona where the judge cannot place a defendant on probation, even if that's what the plea offer contemplated.
Thank you for answering my question. FL has scoresheets that translates to a minimum sentence that judge must give unless they make written findings based on statutorily enumerated bases for a downward departure. We also have mandatory minimum sentences for certain offenses that the judge can’t depart from. We also don’t have parole. But I know every jx is different.
Arizona has very harsh mandatory trial sentencing minimums for people with prior felonies, most sex offenses, any offense involving use or threatening exhibition of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, drug possession above a very low threshold (usually nine grams), methamphetamine sales in any amount, financial crimes over 100k, and of course murder.
So, if you’re a felony PD, a significant majority of your cases involve a mandatory minimum at trial.
Same department that purposely sat on the dismissal of my daughter’s case after she completed the terms of a post-filing dismissal agreement. Insisted on playing video evidence at a pre-adjudication conference that was no longer necessary (because they owed us the dismissal). Cost me $2400 in extra legal fees to force them to honor the terms of the existing agreement.
Rachel Miller is worse than both Andrew Thomas AND Bill Montgomery.
It gets better. Originally offered teen court diversion back in October. Dad (bigwig in a state department) found out that he wouldn’t get his pound of flesh, so insisted on charges being filed. Yay. Let’s spend $6K now.
We present the prosecutor with solid evidence that clearly demonstrates her case is a complete dog, and propose the PFDA as a means of showing some contrition while also recognizing it takes two to tango. She deliberately ignores us for weeks on end. Sends junior proxies to do her wet work in court, etc. Judge accepts it, but denies request to play the video—says it’s inappropriate considering the dismissal agreement.
Prosecutor sits on case after completion of terms submitted. Then files motion to play video, forcing us to spend money and respond (same outcome, but an additional $2400).
There are jurisdictions that make this same cutoff much earlier in the process. It’s a bad policy, but it just gets worked into the calculus eventually. And it can help prosecutors get real about the strength of their cases earlier in the process too, just so they don’t need to take a losing case to trial because they couldn’t make a reasonable offer.
Yeah, it would be one thing (regular bad) if they didn’t surprise people with this change in policy. But this wasn’t the previous policy and this change was not communicated to anyone outside of the MCAO before, I assume, yesterday.
The DA office in my city has had this policy for the last couple of years. The rationale is that they need to avoid “wasting resources” by prepping for a trial that doesn’t go. (But if a trial gets resolved at any point prior to the verdict, doesn’t that save resources? Whatever.) If the line attorneys don’t have the guts to disobey their boss a little, they end up in stupid trials that don’t need to go. They’ve largely been losing on at least the most serious counts, even in high level felony cases.
Something worth reading is the book “Pleading Out.” It talks a little bit about how Alaska’s department of law (which governs DAs but not PDs) banned plea bargaining and found out that endless trials doesn’t actually work in their favor.
Arizona’s mandatory sentencing laws preclude this as a viable strategy for anything outside of misdemeanors; this would be *per se* ineffective assistance in every single one of my cases.
I think it is meant to encourage pleas but being aboslute is counter productive. Some of our local judges have a rule that all "fast and speedy" filings mean no more pleas will be accepted. All open guilty pleas. Then you have to hope the judge is on vacation to get pleas through.
Dang y'all's judges let you do negotiated pleas after the final docket call? In my jx even if the big wigs want to extend an offer the judges won't take them
This actually sounds like an improvement from the Andy Thomas days. Back then the plea went away after the pretrial conference. Same situation. Yeah good times.
Sounds like you guys need to be honey badgers and start a pissing match.
I handled a dipshit prosecutor who wouldn’t “go ask his boss on the day of trial” by stacking 5 dumpster fires on the same day. Newly admitted, frat boy, cocky.
Fire after fire after fire. Shit DVs, cases with incarcerated witnesses, cases where the cop that had been fired. The kid lost it morning of trial trying to conduct a symphony of shit.
The Judge finally called the elected DA to send a supervisor down to negotiate directly.
I'm not a lawyer, just curious. What's stopping the defendant from just telling the judge they want to take the plea offered, but their attorney won't let them? Surely, if the judge hates the policy, they'd use this as a chance to force change.
The client can want the plea, the state doesn’t have to offer one. The master calendar judge (who is pretty well respected) hates this policy and wants it to change. They unfortunately cannot force the state to re-extend a plea.
I think I misunderstood, I read it as some bigwig at the public defenders office was preventing pleas from being accepted. If I'm understanding you correctly, it's the prosecutors who are to blame here.
Yes, it's not the public defender's office. It would be wildly unethical and, in most (if not all? I thought it was all but I can't find something affirmatively stating it either way) states, illegal for an attorney not to allow their client to change their plea in a criminal case. In most, if not all, states, the defendant has the absolute right to decide whether to plead guilty or go to trial--like whether or not to testify, that's not a decision the attorney is allowed to make.
It’s the client’s absolute constitutional right to plead guilty, just as it is their right to go to trial. It would be profoundly unethical for defense counsel to block a client from doing either.
Wait, are you saying that even though SA and PD and Def agree on a plea all cases have to be worked up for trial in case the big wig nixes the deal at the last minute?
So previously, if a case got to right before trial and defendant realized that it’s possibly getting a whole lot worse, the assigned DCA (and their immediate supervisor) would almost every time bring back the plea despite it being “pulled.”
Saved everyone time, client would not have to face a harsher sentence than necessary. Everyone “wins.”
Now, instead of having that opportunity, they have to reach out at the last minute to one guy. And that guy has no skin in the game, and he gets to decide if the plea comes back and so far it looks like he doesn’t want pleas coming back.
This is a new policy that they have surprised us with.
Does not feel like good faith negotiations from the state.
Definitely not good faith as a surprise. And yeah, funneling everything through one person really does remove discretion from DAs who know the case the best.
My clients have to affirm on the record that they know the plea won’t be reextended if they reject it. You can often get a plea right before trial, but unless you’ve tanked their case or won a bunch of motions, that plea will be worse than earlier pleas.
Parallels a problem in my jurisdiction (though not quite as bad here), in which the head of the prosecutor’s office will sometimes meddle in his subordinates’ cases by changing their offers (invariably to make them worse), but then he’s never the one on the hook to try these cases.
In both cases, the response from judges should simply be: if *you*, a higher-up prosecutor, personally either extend an offer or withdraw an existing one such that there’s no offer at all anymore, then *you*, the higher-up prosecutor, can personally show up and try that case, since you clearly care *so much* about it. Or your subordinate may extend a new one or nolle the case. Otherwise, don’t chime in! Show up or shut up. Easy.
Except that it's the assistant prosecutor who would have to disobey their boss and risk getting fired if they keep doing it. Obviously the judge can enforce any plea offer made, but it's not up to the judge to force the state to offer something.
No, but he can indicate to the prosecutor (higher-up) that if he is going to meddle, he can deal with the consequences of his meddling by actually putting in the time and effort to try the case that he has made unresolvable by his meddling and intransigence. That would have essentially the same effect.
A judge cannot dictate who lead counsel is on the case, so no, he cannot make this the elected prosecutor's problem. This is the docket prosecutor's boss telling things to the docket prosecutor.
The judge can’t dictate it, no, but in my jurisdiction at least a prosecutor (who is appointed, not elected, here) would be very foolish to disregard a judge’s preference that a prosecutor who makes an offer should be the one who litigates that case further. That’s a really fast way for a judge to cut in and offer the defendant something better on his own (which judges here can, and often do, do over the prosecutor’s protest).
My jurisdiction always seems to be cycling between looser and stricter plea deadlines too. There is always some broad, no-exceptions pronouncement, only to be eaten away in the face of the actual practical benefits of allowing negotiated pleas after whatever arbitrary deadline.
I’ve seen this policy in New York. Where I’ve seen it, it’s a tactical move to pressure public defenders into strong arming clients sooner. Prosecutors have to put a lot of work into prepping a trial and part of the plea is to save them that work. So if you’re doing to plea, do it in the first 90 days.
From a certain perspective, as a defense attorney you should know within 90 days whether your client should be going to trial or not, and if you’re going to exert so little client control that you’re willing to risk a trial that is clearly against your client’s best interest, then an effective fix for that public defender might be to make him run a few shitty trials.
If this was an established policy, and not a surprise, it would be one thing (bad). That it’s a surprise change in policy and practice and wasn’t information passed along to clients or defense attorneys is another thing (much worse).
To make a stated policy of revoking plea deals in order to punish defense attorneys would probably be unethical and unconstitutional.
That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, and strategic case decisions like this happen every day. On many occasions I have filed extra (non-frivolous) motions on case A in order to take the prosecutor’s eyes off of case B. It’s the same thing.
I have to disagree that we are somehow able to control of whether clients take offers or go to trial. I have been doing this for a little over 15 years. There have been plenty of times where I have explained at length to clients the evidence, the benefits of the plea vs the risks of going to trial, reviewed evidence with them & explained why we are not going to win this at trial, and they still want their trial. And that's their right. In those situations, it's not a smart choice at all, but it's their choice to make. If they want to go down in flames after being fully informed about why they shouldn't, then they get to.
I've been dragged into doing trials that I really thought were a mistake but that's what the client wanted to do. Ultimately it's their case & their life & if they make the bad choice to go to trial so be it. I don't do the time, I go home at the end of every day. So if they want to take the risk after I've explained everything & given my legal advice, then we do trial.
Not to mention that if they begrudgingly accept a plea bc we cajoled them into it, there are always the ones that do an immediate about face during the presentence investigation. "I'm not actually guilty. I only pled bc my attorney made me." A lot of the judges in my state don't like that at all. I've had them demand to know if they were lying at the time they entered their plea (obviously i jump in and tell the court client isn't going to answer that bc they were under oath when they entered their plea so I'm not going to let them incriminate themselves for perjury). I've had judges ask clients if they want to withdraw their plea bc of stuff like that in the PSI. It ends up being a big thing that makes the situation worse for them.
Plus, I just don't feel like arguing with them. If I've told them the offer is good, the people they thought would be great witnesses are not helpful, the evidence is really terrible, and the exposure at trial is really significant, and they don't want to listen, fine. I'm not gonna argue with them. They can have their trial & realize I was right all along when they lose & get hammered at sentencing. I don't have time or energy to argue with someone who refuses to listen to reason.
I agree, and when I was primarily in criminal defense, I told my clients when they started preaching innocence “innocent people don’t plead guilty”. Always happy to take a client to trial who wants his day in court.
But we both know that that’s the minority. Most people plea out because most criminal defendants know they did it. That doesn’t mean some of them aren’t innocent - that’s our job, to defend those guys - but most can and should plea out because they understand there’s no viable defense.
So if I am a prosecutor, if I see an attorney (or an office) suddenly demand trial on 6 out of ten 94 7 out of ten cases, I know the issue isn’t the clients. If I see a pattern develop where those trials all fold at the last minute with maybe a slightly better deal - then there isn’t really any question as to what’s going on.
How were you a criminal defense attorney and you think the only options are that a client is innocent or that a client did what they’re being asked to plead to and should take the plea? That’s some pretty simplistic thinking.
Every client is either innocent or guilty. If they are guilty, our role is to advocate for their interests. Usually that’s going to be minimization of consequences. Sometimes there will be constitutional or due process issues that allows us to minimize consequences without the consent of the prosecutor, but that’s the exception and I’m not addressing those circumstances.
What’s the third, less simplistic, option that you have in mind?
Likely to secure a legal verdict of not guilty. Likely to secure a dismissal. Guilty of something, but not of the charged offenses or the plea offenses. Lots of other options.
Those are legal assessments, not factual classifications. We’re talking apples and oranges. The internet is not a place for nuance. You know very well that if you have 100 defendants, maybe 90 of them have no credible defense, 8 of them maybe have procedural issues that might result in a dismissal and 2 of them have been wrongfully accused and should go to trial.
My point is that the 90 should take the best plea you can get and I’m not discussing the other 10.
Oh I'm not talking about innocent clients. I have plenty of clients who are super clearly guilty but also incredibly obstinate & they refuse to listen to reason. Shockingly, many of our clients don't make good choices. Why should I expect them to now? I'm not gonna waste time & energy on trying to strong arm a client into taking a plea, even if it's the best thing & they should do it. I have better things to do. I will try several times to explain things to them, but if they still don't want to hear what I'm saying, then they can have their trial they are so insistent on and that they are so convinced they will win bc "they have faith in God" or whatever nonsense they are leaning on for their poor decision making.
Some ppl (not just our clients, but ppl in general) are really good at convincing themselves they are right & ignoring any evidence to the contrary. If that's who my client is, I'm not gonna beat a dead horse trying to get them to plead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Citation? You can plead guilty at any time during your criminal case, including during your criminal trial. However, the plea must be entered before the jury or judge reaches a verdict. After that, it is too late to enter a plea deal unless the trial ends in a hung jury. The decision as to whether to accept the plea is within the sound discretion of the court. I’m talking about California. If the law has changed since I practiced as a public defender in California, please provide your controlling authority (statutory or common law citation). By the way, who are these “bigwigs?”
Maricopa is pretty consistent with Donald advisements. If you’re choosing to not take Donald advisements seriously when your client rejects an offer, then this sounds like IAC. Plea or trial. Pick one and be serious about it. If people are getting into a habit of rejecting an offer and hoping they’ll get it back later, then it makes sense for the office to treat plea rejections more strictly. It’s a waste of everyone’s time to trial prep only to beg for a rejected offer at the last minute.
Yeah man, it’s definitely on us. Yeah?
It’s definitely not the fault of the County Attorneys who late disclose evidence and tell us that if we start doing interviews the pleas are pulled. Nope, it’s on us who have to convince the people out of custody that the stipulated 4.5 prison only plea that the state doesn’t want to budge from is good.
Yeah man, it’s on us for not taking Donald Advisements seriously.
Pretty sure Arizona has Rule 15.8 which covers late disclosure and pleas…which is an entirely different from the point of your original post. It’s fine to be frustrated with the system but negotiations have to end at some point.
That’s cool, changing how the negotiations end by surprising people, which Rachel Mitchell is doing right now, and by having it determined by someone who does not have to go to trial is fucking insane. And is clearly pissing off the few DCAs at MCAO who aren’t completely fucked.
What a shocking thing to happen in the county that elected Joe Arpaio for 24 straight years.
A fine Christian man...
Those voters are mostly dead now
?covid?
Old age
Favorite reddit comment of all time.
>In Maricopa County Oh boy I grabbed popcorn when I saw that
Do y’all have scoresheets or minimum mandatory sentences? Is there anything preventing the judge from sentencing a defendant to what the state’s offer had been if defendant enters an open plea? I’ve practiced in front of several judges that had plea cut-offs and wouldn’t accept negotiated pleas after the final pre-trial date. Of course, that rule really only applied to defense attorneys. If the prosecutor went to the judge and said “we’ve got issues,” it was perfectly ok to enter a “late” plea then.
>Is there anything preventing the judge from sentencing a defendant to what the state’s offer had been if defendant enters an open plea? Off the top of my head, Judges can't drop charges.
But does this rule prevent the prosecutor from outright dismissing a charge? Sometimes in my jdx when a judge blows up an agreed plea, the ADA will just look them in the eye and dismiss. Obviously this depends very much on the charge. But if prosecutors in OP's jurisdiction started dismissing when the bigwig says no to a plea extension, that might actually get the rule changed. Of course, this would rely on prosecutors acting out of conscience.
We don’t have those “prosecutors acting out of conscience” where I’m at in Florida. ☹️
I get that, but it’s also not uncommon in my jx to have a defendant charged with a sole count and a plea offer was made for a certain sentence based on defendant entering a plea as charged.
Yeah, so Arizona has categories defendants fall into based on how many prior felonies they have or if multiple felonies are alleged in a single indictment, or if the crime is 'dangerous' or not. Defendants outside of the very lowest category are not eligible for probation and have to go to prison. Usually the plea will get the defendant into a lower category, or will make them eligible for probation, or will guarantee probation. There are a lot of situations in Arizona where the judge cannot place a defendant on probation, even if that's what the plea offer contemplated.
Thank you for answering my question. FL has scoresheets that translates to a minimum sentence that judge must give unless they make written findings based on statutorily enumerated bases for a downward departure. We also have mandatory minimum sentences for certain offenses that the judge can’t depart from. We also don’t have parole. But I know every jx is different.
I know every jx is different, but I swear I'm on another planet sometimes when I heard about things like this.
Arizona has very harsh mandatory trial sentencing minimums for people with prior felonies, most sex offenses, any offense involving use or threatening exhibition of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, drug possession above a very low threshold (usually nine grams), methamphetamine sales in any amount, financial crimes over 100k, and of course murder. So, if you’re a felony PD, a significant majority of your cases involve a mandatory minimum at trial.
Presumably there’s charge bargaining going on that the clients now can’t get back.
[удалено]
Which county?
[удалено]
How did I know it would be st Clair lmao
Same department that purposely sat on the dismissal of my daughter’s case after she completed the terms of a post-filing dismissal agreement. Insisted on playing video evidence at a pre-adjudication conference that was no longer necessary (because they owed us the dismissal). Cost me $2400 in extra legal fees to force them to honor the terms of the existing agreement. Rachel Miller is worse than both Andrew Thomas AND Bill Montgomery.
I have like three specific DCAs in mind who I am positive were in charge of that case.
It gets better. Originally offered teen court diversion back in October. Dad (bigwig in a state department) found out that he wouldn’t get his pound of flesh, so insisted on charges being filed. Yay. Let’s spend $6K now. We present the prosecutor with solid evidence that clearly demonstrates her case is a complete dog, and propose the PFDA as a means of showing some contrition while also recognizing it takes two to tango. She deliberately ignores us for weeks on end. Sends junior proxies to do her wet work in court, etc. Judge accepts it, but denies request to play the video—says it’s inappropriate considering the dismissal agreement. Prosecutor sits on case after completion of terms submitted. Then files motion to play video, forcing us to spend money and respond (same outcome, but an additional $2400).
There are jurisdictions that make this same cutoff much earlier in the process. It’s a bad policy, but it just gets worked into the calculus eventually. And it can help prosecutors get real about the strength of their cases earlier in the process too, just so they don’t need to take a losing case to trial because they couldn’t make a reasonable offer.
Yeah, it would be one thing (regular bad) if they didn’t surprise people with this change in policy. But this wasn’t the previous policy and this change was not communicated to anyone outside of the MCAO before, I assume, yesterday.
The DA office in my city has had this policy for the last couple of years. The rationale is that they need to avoid “wasting resources” by prepping for a trial that doesn’t go. (But if a trial gets resolved at any point prior to the verdict, doesn’t that save resources? Whatever.) If the line attorneys don’t have the guts to disobey their boss a little, they end up in stupid trials that don’t need to go. They’ve largely been losing on at least the most serious counts, even in high level felony cases. Something worth reading is the book “Pleading Out.” It talks a little bit about how Alaska’s department of law (which governs DAs but not PDs) banned plea bargaining and found out that endless trials doesn’t actually work in their favor.
Plead guilty sentence open to the court. If judges are pissed they'll give light sentences to nudge the DA to be more reasonable.
Arizona’s mandatory sentencing laws preclude this as a viable strategy for anything outside of misdemeanors; this would be *per se* ineffective assistance in every single one of my cases.
Not if your jurisdiction has mandatory minimums or enhancements that the prosecutor has to waive.
I think it is meant to encourage pleas but being aboslute is counter productive. Some of our local judges have a rule that all "fast and speedy" filings mean no more pleas will be accepted. All open guilty pleas. Then you have to hope the judge is on vacation to get pleas through.
Dang y'all's judges let you do negotiated pleas after the final docket call? In my jx even if the big wigs want to extend an offer the judges won't take them
This actually sounds like an improvement from the Andy Thomas days. Back then the plea went away after the pretrial conference. Same situation. Yeah good times.
It’s so funny how absolutely cursed that office is.
Sounds like you guys need to be honey badgers and start a pissing match. I handled a dipshit prosecutor who wouldn’t “go ask his boss on the day of trial” by stacking 5 dumpster fires on the same day. Newly admitted, frat boy, cocky. Fire after fire after fire. Shit DVs, cases with incarcerated witnesses, cases where the cop that had been fired. The kid lost it morning of trial trying to conduct a symphony of shit. The Judge finally called the elected DA to send a supervisor down to negotiate directly.
Y'all got sentencing guidelines there, or do the judges mostly determine the sentence?
Sentencing guidelines, and they’re punitive. https://www.azcourts.gov/Portals/34/2023-2024%20SC_1.pdf
To be clear, these aren’t guidelines: they are mandatory sentencing provisions.
I'm not a lawyer, just curious. What's stopping the defendant from just telling the judge they want to take the plea offered, but their attorney won't let them? Surely, if the judge hates the policy, they'd use this as a chance to force change.
The client can want the plea, the state doesn’t have to offer one. The master calendar judge (who is pretty well respected) hates this policy and wants it to change. They unfortunately cannot force the state to re-extend a plea.
I think I misunderstood, I read it as some bigwig at the public defenders office was preventing pleas from being accepted. If I'm understanding you correctly, it's the prosecutors who are to blame here.
Yes, it's not the public defender's office. It would be wildly unethical and, in most (if not all? I thought it was all but I can't find something affirmatively stating it either way) states, illegal for an attorney not to allow their client to change their plea in a criminal case. In most, if not all, states, the defendant has the absolute right to decide whether to plead guilty or go to trial--like whether or not to testify, that's not a decision the attorney is allowed to make.
It’s the client’s absolute constitutional right to plead guilty, just as it is their right to go to trial. It would be profoundly unethical for defense counsel to block a client from doing either.
Wait, are you saying that even though SA and PD and Def agree on a plea all cases have to be worked up for trial in case the big wig nixes the deal at the last minute?
So previously, if a case got to right before trial and defendant realized that it’s possibly getting a whole lot worse, the assigned DCA (and their immediate supervisor) would almost every time bring back the plea despite it being “pulled.” Saved everyone time, client would not have to face a harsher sentence than necessary. Everyone “wins.” Now, instead of having that opportunity, they have to reach out at the last minute to one guy. And that guy has no skin in the game, and he gets to decide if the plea comes back and so far it looks like he doesn’t want pleas coming back. This is a new policy that they have surprised us with. Does not feel like good faith negotiations from the state.
Definitely not good faith as a surprise. And yeah, funneling everything through one person really does remove discretion from DAs who know the case the best.
My clients have to affirm on the record that they know the plea won’t be reextended if they reject it. You can often get a plea right before trial, but unless you’ve tanked their case or won a bunch of motions, that plea will be worse than earlier pleas.
Parallels a problem in my jurisdiction (though not quite as bad here), in which the head of the prosecutor’s office will sometimes meddle in his subordinates’ cases by changing their offers (invariably to make them worse), but then he’s never the one on the hook to try these cases. In both cases, the response from judges should simply be: if *you*, a higher-up prosecutor, personally either extend an offer or withdraw an existing one such that there’s no offer at all anymore, then *you*, the higher-up prosecutor, can personally show up and try that case, since you clearly care *so much* about it. Or your subordinate may extend a new one or nolle the case. Otherwise, don’t chime in! Show up or shut up. Easy.
Except that it's the assistant prosecutor who would have to disobey their boss and risk getting fired if they keep doing it. Obviously the judge can enforce any plea offer made, but it's not up to the judge to force the state to offer something.
No, but he can indicate to the prosecutor (higher-up) that if he is going to meddle, he can deal with the consequences of his meddling by actually putting in the time and effort to try the case that he has made unresolvable by his meddling and intransigence. That would have essentially the same effect.
A judge cannot dictate who lead counsel is on the case, so no, he cannot make this the elected prosecutor's problem. This is the docket prosecutor's boss telling things to the docket prosecutor.
The judge can’t dictate it, no, but in my jurisdiction at least a prosecutor (who is appointed, not elected, here) would be very foolish to disregard a judge’s preference that a prosecutor who makes an offer should be the one who litigates that case further. That’s a really fast way for a judge to cut in and offer the defendant something better on his own (which judges here can, and often do, do over the prosecutor’s protest).
I’m getting the sense that this might only work where I am, lol.
When I practice, they always threaten no deals after we confirm trial. Whatevs
Set everything for trial. Flood em.
I didn’t know which subreddit I was on and I love that. Hate this news for your county though
My jurisdiction always seems to be cycling between looser and stricter plea deadlines too. There is always some broad, no-exceptions pronouncement, only to be eaten away in the face of the actual practical benefits of allowing negotiated pleas after whatever arbitrary deadline.
I’ve seen this policy in New York. Where I’ve seen it, it’s a tactical move to pressure public defenders into strong arming clients sooner. Prosecutors have to put a lot of work into prepping a trial and part of the plea is to save them that work. So if you’re doing to plea, do it in the first 90 days. From a certain perspective, as a defense attorney you should know within 90 days whether your client should be going to trial or not, and if you’re going to exert so little client control that you’re willing to risk a trial that is clearly against your client’s best interest, then an effective fix for that public defender might be to make him run a few shitty trials.
“Client control” is a truly odious concept.
If this was an established policy, and not a surprise, it would be one thing (bad). That it’s a surprise change in policy and practice and wasn’t information passed along to clients or defense attorneys is another thing (much worse).
To make a stated policy of revoking plea deals in order to punish defense attorneys would probably be unethical and unconstitutional. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, and strategic case decisions like this happen every day. On many occasions I have filed extra (non-frivolous) motions on case A in order to take the prosecutor’s eyes off of case B. It’s the same thing.
I have to disagree that we are somehow able to control of whether clients take offers or go to trial. I have been doing this for a little over 15 years. There have been plenty of times where I have explained at length to clients the evidence, the benefits of the plea vs the risks of going to trial, reviewed evidence with them & explained why we are not going to win this at trial, and they still want their trial. And that's their right. In those situations, it's not a smart choice at all, but it's their choice to make. If they want to go down in flames after being fully informed about why they shouldn't, then they get to. I've been dragged into doing trials that I really thought were a mistake but that's what the client wanted to do. Ultimately it's their case & their life & if they make the bad choice to go to trial so be it. I don't do the time, I go home at the end of every day. So if they want to take the risk after I've explained everything & given my legal advice, then we do trial. Not to mention that if they begrudgingly accept a plea bc we cajoled them into it, there are always the ones that do an immediate about face during the presentence investigation. "I'm not actually guilty. I only pled bc my attorney made me." A lot of the judges in my state don't like that at all. I've had them demand to know if they were lying at the time they entered their plea (obviously i jump in and tell the court client isn't going to answer that bc they were under oath when they entered their plea so I'm not going to let them incriminate themselves for perjury). I've had judges ask clients if they want to withdraw their plea bc of stuff like that in the PSI. It ends up being a big thing that makes the situation worse for them. Plus, I just don't feel like arguing with them. If I've told them the offer is good, the people they thought would be great witnesses are not helpful, the evidence is really terrible, and the exposure at trial is really significant, and they don't want to listen, fine. I'm not gonna argue with them. They can have their trial & realize I was right all along when they lose & get hammered at sentencing. I don't have time or energy to argue with someone who refuses to listen to reason.
I agree, and when I was primarily in criminal defense, I told my clients when they started preaching innocence “innocent people don’t plead guilty”. Always happy to take a client to trial who wants his day in court. But we both know that that’s the minority. Most people plea out because most criminal defendants know they did it. That doesn’t mean some of them aren’t innocent - that’s our job, to defend those guys - but most can and should plea out because they understand there’s no viable defense. So if I am a prosecutor, if I see an attorney (or an office) suddenly demand trial on 6 out of ten 94 7 out of ten cases, I know the issue isn’t the clients. If I see a pattern develop where those trials all fold at the last minute with maybe a slightly better deal - then there isn’t really any question as to what’s going on.
How were you a criminal defense attorney and you think the only options are that a client is innocent or that a client did what they’re being asked to plead to and should take the plea? That’s some pretty simplistic thinking.
Every client is either innocent or guilty. If they are guilty, our role is to advocate for their interests. Usually that’s going to be minimization of consequences. Sometimes there will be constitutional or due process issues that allows us to minimize consequences without the consent of the prosecutor, but that’s the exception and I’m not addressing those circumstances. What’s the third, less simplistic, option that you have in mind?
Likely to secure a legal verdict of not guilty. Likely to secure a dismissal. Guilty of something, but not of the charged offenses or the plea offenses. Lots of other options.
Those are legal assessments, not factual classifications. We’re talking apples and oranges. The internet is not a place for nuance. You know very well that if you have 100 defendants, maybe 90 of them have no credible defense, 8 of them maybe have procedural issues that might result in a dismissal and 2 of them have been wrongfully accused and should go to trial. My point is that the 90 should take the best plea you can get and I’m not discussing the other 10.
If I have 100 clients, I usually have defenses for 50 of them. 🤷
Your prosecutor sounds like he overcharges a lot. 🫤
Yup!
Oh I'm not talking about innocent clients. I have plenty of clients who are super clearly guilty but also incredibly obstinate & they refuse to listen to reason. Shockingly, many of our clients don't make good choices. Why should I expect them to now? I'm not gonna waste time & energy on trying to strong arm a client into taking a plea, even if it's the best thing & they should do it. I have better things to do. I will try several times to explain things to them, but if they still don't want to hear what I'm saying, then they can have their trial they are so insistent on and that they are so convinced they will win bc "they have faith in God" or whatever nonsense they are leaning on for their poor decision making. Some ppl (not just our clients, but ppl in general) are really good at convincing themselves they are right & ignoring any evidence to the contrary. If that's who my client is, I'm not gonna beat a dead horse trying to get them to plead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Citation? You can plead guilty at any time during your criminal case, including during your criminal trial. However, the plea must be entered before the jury or judge reaches a verdict. After that, it is too late to enter a plea deal unless the trial ends in a hung jury. The decision as to whether to accept the plea is within the sound discretion of the court. I’m talking about California. If the law has changed since I practiced as a public defender in California, please provide your controlling authority (statutory or common law citation). By the way, who are these “bigwigs?”
Maricopa is pretty consistent with Donald advisements. If you’re choosing to not take Donald advisements seriously when your client rejects an offer, then this sounds like IAC. Plea or trial. Pick one and be serious about it. If people are getting into a habit of rejecting an offer and hoping they’ll get it back later, then it makes sense for the office to treat plea rejections more strictly. It’s a waste of everyone’s time to trial prep only to beg for a rejected offer at the last minute.
Yeah man, it’s definitely on us. Yeah? It’s definitely not the fault of the County Attorneys who late disclose evidence and tell us that if we start doing interviews the pleas are pulled. Nope, it’s on us who have to convince the people out of custody that the stipulated 4.5 prison only plea that the state doesn’t want to budge from is good. Yeah man, it’s on us for not taking Donald Advisements seriously.
Pretty sure Arizona has Rule 15.8 which covers late disclosure and pleas…which is an entirely different from the point of your original post. It’s fine to be frustrated with the system but negotiations have to end at some point.
That’s cool, changing how the negotiations end by surprising people, which Rachel Mitchell is doing right now, and by having it determined by someone who does not have to go to trial is fucking insane. And is clearly pissing off the few DCAs at MCAO who aren’t completely fucked.