I’ll keep this as simple as possible.
A young relative of mine has been charged with a single count of a federal offense. He stupidly talked to the authorities without waiting for a lawyer (I don’t know if he was Mirandized, but I would assume so) and essentially confessed.
Neither he nor his parents can afford a lawyer, apparently, and have been assigned a federal public defender.
The defense and prosecution have reached a plea agreement and agreed on a recommended sentence. This was probably possible because additional evidence against him is weak, so the government is sticking to the one simple charge which it can support. The prosecution has explicitly said in court that it does not intend to argue the additional evidence.
Now for the sentencing hearing. Some kind of reviewing authority, I’m sorry I don’t know its official name, it’s not a parole board, has entered the case and interviewed some – but not all – of the involved parties verbally. Based on those interviews alone, narrowly excluding interviewing the defendant and his supporters, this body has recommended that the judge add an “enhancement” to the proposed sentence, which will greatly extend the sentence.
The judge has said he is troubled by this, and granted a continuance so that the public defender can decide whether to subpoena the interviewed parties and cross-examine the testimony that the prosecution regarded as too weak to try in court.
The public defender does not want to compel testimony. I don’t know if there’s another skeleton in the closet that he is trying to keep from coming out, or if he’s not very good, or what.
The sentencing hearing will resume Friday. Time is perilously short.
It seems unfair that my relative can reach a plea agreement and recommended sentencing agreement with the prosecution, having pled to a specific charge, and then another body can enter the case and advocate greatly extending the sentence based on interviews that have been subsequently entered as evidence and not testified to in court, nor cross-examined. The interviewed parties were considered unsuitable to testify by the prosecution; this seems like a back-door way to slip their accusations into the case.
The judge seems very stern, but concerned with fairness. However, he has seemed sympathetic to the interviewed parties when speaking of them.
Is this process common? Fair?
Sailboat