Wednesday, April 25, 2018
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Ninth Circuit:
Prosecutor Arguing Against Recommended Sentence Did Not Affect ‘Substantial Rights’ of Defendant
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a two-year sentence for an alien who illegally reentered the United States, rejecting his complaint that the government breached a plea bargain when an assistant U.S. attorney argued against it.
Defendant Alejandro Parra-Ramos and the government had agreed to a recommended two-month sentence. However, at the sentencing hearing before District Judge Larry A. Burns of the Southern District of California, the prosecutor said he would “take the Fifth” when asked to explain the reasoning behind the recommendation.
He then admitted that there wasn’t “any rationality” to it in light of a seven-year sentence recommended in a similar case.
A three-judge panel, in a memorandum opinion filed Monday, said:
“Even if the government breached the plea agreement by implicitly disclaiming the agreed-upon recommendation, the breach did not affect Parra-Ramos’s substantial rights….At sentencing, the district court focused on Parra-Ramos’s five prior convictions for immigration offenses and his failure to be deterred by previous sentences. Even defense counsel recognized at sentencing that, in light of Parra-Ramos’s history, the court would be ‘disinclined’ to follow the parties’ recommendation. Under these circumstances, there is no reasonable probability that the alleged breach affected the court’s sentencing determination.”
The panel said in a footnote:
“We do not approve of ‘taking the fifth’ when asked by a judge about the reasoning behind a plea agreement and then saying it had ‘no rationality.’ We expect more serious responses by officers of the court, especially when the issue is the length of a defendant’s sentence.”
The case is U.S.A. v. Parra-Ramos, No. 17-50216.
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