BLOG BULLETS: A recent Ninth Circuit opinion reaffirms prior cases recognizing that the government can breach plea agreements implicitly as well as explicitly. There’s a breach whenever the government makes a required recommendation but accompanies it with inflammatory arguments that effectively undercut the recommendation. So long as you object to the breach, there’s an automatic […]

BLOG BULLETS: A new DOJ policy adopts a presumption that custodial interrogations should be recorded. There are exceptions where the suspect will make a statement only if isn’t recorded, where the “public safety exception” applies, where recording isn’t “reasonably practicable,” and/or where a Special Agent in Charge and a United States Attorney or his or […]

BLOG BULLETS: Section 5G1.3 of the guidelines requires a court to take an already existing sentence into account when sentencing for a second offense if the already existing sentence is for an offense that qualifies as relevant conduct, by (1) making the sentence for the second offense concurrent and (2) reducing the second sentence by […]