Court Opinion

ID: 9675581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:58:14.507206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:35.679294
License: Public Domain

*39Cynar, J.
(concurring). I agree with the analysis and result reached by the majority. I write separately only to emphasize additional points.
Since the prosecutor could not bind the trial judge as to the maximum sentence, the sentence agreement between the prosecutor and defendant was nothing more than a sentence recommendation. In accepting defendant’s plea, the sentencing judge did not bind himself to the ten-year sentence recommended by the prosecutor. Rather, he merely accepted the plea as given, subject to the sentencing recommendation. His power to pronounce sentence was still left intact.
However, in such a situation the defendant may have been misled into believing the prosecutor’s recommendation was binding. Thus, a subsequent decision not to follow the prosecutor’s recommendation may appear to the defendant to be a unilateral rejection of a previously agreed-upon bargain.
I agree with the majority’s solution to this problem. However, it appears the judge in such a situation should inform the defendant that the recommendation is not binding. In this way, a defendant knows the precise extent of the benefit received in the bargain.