Opinion ID: 199008
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Package Deal Objection

Text: 12 Hernandez argues that the government violated his constitutional rights by withdrawing the original plea offer and replacing it with a package deal plea that Hernandez could only accept if his two remaining co-defendants also pled guilty. Because his co-defendants wanted a jury trial, Hernandez says he was unable to accept the agreement and was thus forced to go to trial. 13 Hernandez's objections have no merit. First, the government was under no obligation to leave its original plea offer open. At the sentencing hearing, Hernandez's counsel conceded that he had never accepted the initial plea offer, instead hoping for success on a motion to dismiss. He further conceded that while we were waiting for disposition of those motions . . . at that point, between all that, the government withdrew. It is axiomatic that a prosecutor may withdraw a plea offer before a defendant accepts it. See United States v. Papaleo, 853 F.2d 16, 19-20 (1st Cir. 1988); see also Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 504, 507 (1984). 14 Given that the government was entitled to withdraw the initial plea offer, the question becomes whether the government could offer a new package deal plea bargain that would be available to Hernandez only if his two co-defendants also gave up their right to a jury trial. Assuming that a package deal offer was made 2 , it would not violate Hernandez's constitutional rights. Although we have expressed concerns with package deal plea agreements, those concerns have no application here. The difficulty with package deal plea offers is not the fear that a defendant, like Hernandez, will be forced to go to trial. Rather, it is the opposite fear that the defendant will involuntarily waive his right to a jury trial because his codefendants will coerce him to accept the plea agreement. SeeUnited States v. Martnez-Molina, 64 F.3d 719, 732 (1st Cir. 1995). We have held that [p]ackage plea deals therefore impose special obligations: the prosecutor must alert the district court to the fact that codefendants are entering a package deal, and the district court must carefully ascertain the voluntariness of each defendant's plea. Id. at 733 (internal citations omitted) (vacating package deal guilty plea when district court did not determine if it was voluntary); see also United States v. Daniels, 821 F.2d 76, 78-79 (1st Cir. 1987) (vacating package deal guilty plea when government did not inform trial court about nature of agreement). 15 The voluntariness concern that the defendant may have been coerced into giving up his right to go to trial obviously does not apply when the defendant does go to trial. It is difficult, then, to understand the constitutional right at stake here. While the package deal did limit Hernandez's ability to obtain a plea bargain (since the other defendants would also be required to plead guilty), the fact remains that there is no constitutional right to plea bargain; the prosecutor need not do so if he prefers to go to trial. It is a novel argument that constitutional rights are infringed by trying the defendant rather than accepting his plea of guilty. Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 561 (1977); see also United States v. Wheat, 813 F.2d 1399, 1405 (9th Cir. 1987) (rejecting defendant's claim that package deal plea was unconstitutional because it forced him to go to trial). 16