Opinion ID: 784866
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Abuse of Prosecutorial Discretion (Fernández-Malavé)

Text: 78 Fernández-Malavé makes a generalized protest that the federal prosecution should never have been brought because he (and many of the other defendants) had already pled guilty to related state charges. This argument does not present an issue that is reviewable by this court. Whatever the contours of permissible attacks on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, this claim lies outside of those contours. See United States v. Stokes, 124 F.3d 39, 45 (1st Cir.1997) ([T]he federal government [has] a perfect right to take a hard look at [a] case and to determine whether society's interests call for the unusual step of instituting a federal prosecution notwithstanding the prior commencement of a state prosecution for substantially the same conduct.). 79