United States v. Navarez’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 1 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Navarez contends that he has a substantive right to know prior to trial the sentence he will get. He argues that such knowledge is necessary for him to decide whether to plead guilty. Before enactment of the Guidelines, however a criminal defendant did not have the constitutional right to know the exact sentence he would face, prior to trial or even when pleading guilty. When pleading guilty, the court needed to inform the defendant only of the minimum and maximum sentence he could receive. See, for example, United States v. Theodorou, 576 F.Supp. 1007, 1010-11 (N.D.Ill.1983). This was at a time when judges had greater discretion to impose sentences than they now have under the Guidelines. See Mistretta v. U.S., 488 U.S. 361 , 109 S.Ct. 647, 650-64 , 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989) (discussing history of sentencing in federal courts). What Navarez is arguing is that because one can predict the ultimate sentence with greater certainty under the regime of the Guidelines, a criminal defendant has a greater interest in knowing the relevant facts. Navarez confuses the system’s enhanced ability to estimate sentences with a defendant’s personal, constitutional interest in having such knowledge. The government has no duty under the Constitution to assist a criminal defendant in deciding whether to plead guilty. See U.S. v. Fernandez, 877 F.2d 1138, 1143 (2d Cir. 1989); Bradbury v. Wainwright, 658 F.2d 1083, 1087 (5th Cir. Unit B 1981). The court for its part need only assure itself that a cr”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Wagner