Can a federal judge order a trial over the US Attorney's opposition?

U.S. District Judge John Shabaz REALLY didn’t like a plea bargain struck with a local deputy sheriff. The cop beat a man being booked into jail and threatened other deputies to get them to participate in a cover-up.

The prosecutor offered a deal – plead guilty to one felony charge and two others would be dropped.

From the story:

The prosecutor was later quoted:

Who has the upper hand here?

one bump only, i promise

The U.S. Attorney. “In our system, so long as the prosecutor has probable cause to believe that the accused committed an offense defined by statute, the decision whther or not to prosecute, and what charge to file or bring before a grand jury, generally rests entirely in his discretion.” Bordenkircher v. Hayes 434 U.S. 357, 364 (1978).

OK, let’s say Shabaz refuses to grant the motion to dismiss the two remaining counts. Then what?

Also, can the prosecutor get the motion in front of a different judge?

The judge cannot FORCE a trial. What he’s done by refusing to accept a plea bargain is force the District Attorney to choose between going forward with a trial or dismissing those charges. The DA has the right to move to dismiss all charges rather than go to trial, and the judge pretty much has to dismiss, but its on record that it was the DA, not the judge, who created this situation.

Judges have the right to refuse a plea bargain, but rarely do so, and then usually because they don’t want to explain why they allowed a politically questionable plea bargain to go forward at the time of the next election (since most trial judges are elected).

Boyo Jim -

Sure he can. All he has to do is go before the presiding judge and give a damn good reason why this case should be tranferred. Grant of this motion is very unlikely, since it’s basically saying that the presiding judge thinks the trial judge is being unreasonable.

I interpret the story to mean that the US Attorney had already brought these two charges, and that the judge was basically setting a trial date without the cooperation of the prosecutor.

Is it a valid legal arguement for the judge to rule that the prosecutor already made the decision to prosecute ?

No. The prosecutor may dismiss the charges at any time prior to the verdict. He doesn’t need the court’s permission to do so.

The trial court may refuse to accept a plea bargain or sentencing recommendation, but the decision to prosecute rests with the prosecutor.

  • Rick

So is this just some over the top judge making nutty calls? If it’s some kind of political motivation, I can tell these rulings won’t play too well outside of Madison.