Court Opinion

ID: 9722735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:48:14.210561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:39.499801
License: Public Domain

*513Kaplan, J.
(dissenting). The Commonwealth makes a “firm offer,” which I take to mean a commitment, to recommend a sentence to yield three years at Concord whether the defendant pleads guilty or goes to trial and is convicted. This may be a very foolish commitment in the circumstances, but foolish or not it is made. When it appears that the defendant is headed toward trial, a development the Commonwealth did not expect, the Commonwealth announces that it will recommend a longer sentence at Walpole. The defendant pleads, and the Commonwealth recommends the three years and that is the sentence imposed.
It seems to me that the defendant, after giving himself some time for reflection, should be allowed to withdraw the plea, if he is willing upon advice of counsel to take the risks to himself that that may entail.
The Commonwealth is in the wrong for having reneged on its commitment or having threatened to do so. In such a situation I would not speculate about whether the defendant was actually hurt — whether he would in fact have gone to trial if no breach or threatened breach of the commitment had occurred, and whether, had he gone to trial, he might have succeeded on the merits.
With respect, I believe the substance of the case has slipped through the mesh of the analytics of the court’s opinion. It is only of mild interest whether any constitutional right may have been implicated. This dissent need not rest on the Constitution. It merely insists that the Commonwealth take care to behave itself.
I should add that, despite vehement argument by the Commonwealth to the contrary, I do not perceive how the view I have expressed would interfere with the fair conduct of plea bargaining or prosecution.