Motions for discovery are file and only granted the prosecution and defense and not the public. Tough to get it all even in a Civil Trial.
Nah,I am just one of the white hat boys that watch folks charged with Federal Offenses where the original charge is No-prossed, a new Charge substituted and a negoiated plea agreed upon and accepted by the Court. there would be no incentive to plead if there was no room to negoiate.
So tell me I am wrong, tell me I cited inaccurate info. then ask any Prosecutor or Cop [State or Fed] who brings pukes to justice how many times they go down on the original charge and do time as the guidlines stipulate.
And one more; Guilty folks cannot appeal their conviction based on innocence or guilt. the Federal acknowledgement of rights form and waiver and the process one undertakes to plead guilty, which includes admitting they have pled guilty because they are guilty cannot appeal their guilt or innocence. They can only appeal errors in law.
Read the US Supremes rulings on this and as a NON-Lawyer I cannot cite the sites. But you Lawyers are; I am sure can find it and tell me I am wrong. Then as a Favor I will give you the US District Court I spend [t] lots of time in and was part and parcel to a whole slew of cases disposed of outside the guidlines. Then you can go after the Fed judges right after you crucify Mick some more. The Judicial Conduct Committee exists for this reason and others.
I'm afraid I don't quite know what you are saying your position is with respect to legal proceedings- LEO? I'll tell you this, I'm a licensed lawyer. I was a law clerk to a state judge here in Texas, along with a variety of other positions. I can tell you that in civil trials, motions for discovery and the answers are filed in the District Clerk's file or the County Clerk's file depending on which court the proceeding is in, and are public record. Criminal trials differ because the discovery process is very different, but some information is in the files and are available.
The problem was not that there is room for negotiation but whether a AUSA can offer a plea of going to Somalia and forfeiting pay for a year in lieu of prison time. There is nothing in the docket statement that would suggest that (yes I know there are mistakes many times in those). I have already cited where you made wrong statements and where the proof of that is.
Furthermore, if you look at the Criminal Resource Manual for US Atty's, at
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00626.htm
you'll get this:
626 Plea Agreements and Sentencing Appeal Waivers -- Discussion of the Law
Legality
At the outset, it is important to note that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that a criminal defendant can elect to waive many important constitutional and statutory rights during the plea bargaining process. See United States v. Mezzanatto, 115 S. Ct. 797, 801 (1995); Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 267 (1973); Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 71 (1977, cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 548 (1995). Consistent with that principle, the courts of appeals have upheld the general validity of a sentencing appeal waiver in a plea agreement. See, e.g., United States v. Allison, 59 F.3d 43, 46 (6th Cir. 1995); United States v. Schmidt, 47 F.3d 188, 190 (7th Cir. 1995); United States v. Attar, 38 F.3d 727, 731 (4th Cir. 1994), cert denied, 115 S. Ct. 1957 (1995); United States v. Bushert, 997 F.2d 1343, 1350 (11th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 652 (1994); United States v. DeSantiago-Martinez, 980 F.2d 582, 583 (9th Cir. 1992), amended, 38 F.3d 394 (1994), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 939 (1995); United States v. Melancon, 972 F.2d 566, 567-568 (5th Cir. 1992); United States v. Rivera, 971 F.2d 876, 896 (2d Cir. 1992); United States v. Rutan, 956 F.2d 827, 829-830 (8th Cir. 1992).
A sentencing appeal waiver provision does not waive all claims on appeal. The courts of appeals have held that certain constitutional and statutory claims survive a sentencing appeal waiver in a plea agreement. For example, a defendant's claim that he or she was denied the effective assistance of counsel at sentencing, United States v. Attar, supra; that he or she was sentenced on the basis of race, United States v. Jacobson, 15 F.3d 19 (2d Cir. 1994); or that the sentence exceeded the statutory maximum, United States v. Marin, 961 F.2d 493, 496 (4th Cir. 1992), will be reviewed on the merits by a court of appeals despite the existence of a sentencing appeal waiver in a plea agreement.
Scope of Sentencing Appeal Waivers
A plea bargain is a contract between the prosecutor and the defendant. Thus, the scope of a sentencing appeal waiver in a plea bargain will depend upon the precise language used in the sentencing appeal waiver provision.
A broad sentencing appeal waiver requires the defendant to waive any and all sentencing issues on appeal and through collateral attack. ...
In this regard it is also important to note that the Sentencing Commission's policy statements allow judges to accept plea agreements that do not undermine the statutory purposes of sentencing or the Sentencing Guidelines; the policy statements also admonish the parties when using stipulations to set forth the relevant facts and circumstances of the actual offense conduct and offender characteristics and not to include misleading facts. USSG §§ 6B1.2 and 6B1.4 (Nov. 1994).
...
Use of waiver of appeal rights in a manner resulting in sentences in violation of the Sentencing Guidelines could prompt a court of appeals to reconsider its decision to uphold the validity of a sentencing appeal waiver. Alternatively, the reviewing court could construe a sentencing appeal waiver narrowly in order to correct an obvious miscarriage of justice.
Ensuring that the Waiver is Knowing and Voluntary
A waiver of an important constitutional or statutory right must be knowing and voluntary to be valid. See United States v. Mezzanatto, 115 S. Ct. at 801; Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 243 (1969). Therefore, prosecutors should ensure that the record reflects that the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his or her right to appeal the sentence. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, supra; United States v. Attar, supra; United States v. Bushert, supra.
...
The general acceptance of the sentencing appeal waiver in the courts of appeals has caused criminal defendants to mount systemic challenges to the sentencing appeal waiver. One common and repeated challenge to the sentencing appeal waiver is the argument that a sentencing appeal waiver is involuntary as a matter of law because the defendant will not know his or her actual sentence at the time that the waiver is executed. That argument has been rejected by two courts of appeals. See United States v. Rutan, supra; United States v. Navarro-Botello, 912 F.2d 318, 320 (9th Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 112 S. Ct. 1448 (1992). Rutan reasoned that the validity of a waiver does not depend on the defendant's knowledge of all of the consequences of the waiver to be valid. When a defendant agrees to plead guilty, he or she does not know whether the government can prove its case and how witnesses will testify. Nonetheless, those uncertainties do not make the defendant's waiver of his or her right to contest the government's case invalid as a matter of law. For that same reason, the defendant's lack of knowledge of his or her actual sentence when the waiver is executed does not make a sentencing appeal waiver unknowing as a matter of law.
So it depends on the waiver whether a defendant can appeal guilt (which is limited) however, the waiver doesn't not close out other means of appeal, including ineffective assistance of counsel, which Boats specifically mentioned.
