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Recommended Sentence in Plea Agreement Doesn't Prevent Reduction

By Jonathan Byrne

US v. Dews: This is the first of two recent cases dealing with issues arising from the retroactive application of the amended crack Guidelines. In this case (actually a pair of consolidated cases), the defendants both pleaded guilty via a plea agreement under FRCrP 11(e)(1)(C). The plea agreement included a recommendation that 168 months in prison, the bottom of the Guideline range, was the appropriate sentence in each case. When the Guidelines were amended and made retroactive, both defendants moved the court to reduce their sentences based on the newly calculated (and lower) Guideline range. The district court declined to do so, concluding that because the plea agreements called for a specific sentence, that sentence was not "based on" the Guidelines...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Circuit Blog on January 08, 2009 (boomark / email).