Court Opinion

ID: 9464294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:30:19.137697+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:34.004259
License: Public Domain

STERN, District Judge,
dissenting.
Because I can discern no distinction between a promise “to take no position” on sentence and a promise “to make no recommendation” as to sentence, when each is made by a prosecutor to a defendant, I am unable to join the majority.
I simply do not agree that “[T]he difference between the two terms is elementary, for the promise not to recommend is narrow, speaking only as to the sentence to be imposed, whereas a promise to take no position speaks to no attempt at all to influence the defendant’s sentence.” [Ante 1275] I do not believe that any defendant could appreciate such a distinction.
In United States v. Crusco, 536 F.2d 21 (3rd Cir. 1976), this Court construed a prose-cutorial promise to “take no position as to *1276sentence” to mean that the government had undertaken to refrain from any allocution at sentence, even one directed solely at correcting what were claimed to be factual misstatements to the Court by the defense. The majority, and in my view correctly, in summing up Crusco says, “We held that the Government’s characterization of its remarks [as no recommendation of the terms of the sentence] was nothing more than a transparent effort to influence the severity of the defendant’s sentence.” [Ante 1275] As to Miller, however, the majority characterizes the government’s remarks against mitigation for him as merely “rhetorical”.
In Crusco the prosecutor did not recommend a specific term of years; he spoke only to contradict the mitigating factors urged by the defense. So too here. I cannot construe the prosecutor’s remarks here as rhetorical. He spoke at the moment of sentencing, with the intent to disparage a claim for mitigation made on behalf of one about to be sentenced, and to the very judge who would shortly pronounce that sentence. The government’s rhetoric was not rhetorical. It was uttered to influence the sentence. It could have been uttered for no other purpose.
It is well to remember the full text of the words written by Judge Rosenn in Crusco:
We see the Government’s characterization as a transparent effort to influence the severity of Cimmino’s sentence. Only a stubbornly literal mind would refuse to regard the Government’s commentary as communicating a position on sentencing.
536 F.2d 21, 26 (1976).
I fully concur in the Court’s determination that the government violated no promise to the defendant when it apprised the sentencing court of the extent or lack of this defendant’s cooperation. The government had bargained away no such right at the time of plea; indeed, it had specifically reserved the area for comment. The very reservation demonstrates the bargain to be silent on the rest.