This case raises the legal question \u201cDoes a prosecutor\u2019s failure, before entering into a plea agreement with the defendant, to disclose impeachment information violate the Fifth and Six Amendments?\u201d<\/p>\n
Angela Ruiz was found with 30 kilograms of marijuana in her luggage by immigration agents.\u00a0 After being arrested, Ruiz was offered a \u201cfast track\u201d plea bargain by federal prosecutors.\u00a0 In this bargain Ruiz was asked to waive certain rights such as to an indictment, trial and appeal in exchange for the recommendation of a lesser sentence.\u00a0 Specifically, the sentence would be two counts less.\u00a0 A plea agreement details that all information must have been passed on to the defendant, and must be continue to be.\u00a0 Although, within the terms of her agreement, Ruiz would have to waive her rights to any impeachment information.\u00a0 Ruiz did not want to agree to this section and therefore her bargain was withdrawn.\u00a0 Ruiz was indicted for \u201cunlawful drug possession\u201d (United States v Ruiz<\/i> 626) and pleaded guilty.\u00a0 She was given the standard sentencing for the crime even though she asked for the originally offered sentence of two counts less.\u00a0 Ruiz appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit, it reversed the decision and remanded the case back to the District Court.\u00a0 Although, the Government brought the case to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
The Court unanimously agreed in a vote of 9-0.\u00a0 Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the court.\u00a0 Justice Breyer answer no to our legal question that \u201cthe Constitution does not require that disclosure\u201d (United States v Ruiz<\/i> 625).\u00a0 Breyer ruled that a prosecutor does not need to disclose impeachment information prior to entering a plea agreement with a defendant.\u00a0 The opinion first established that the Constitution does not state that a prosecutor needs to hand over all information to a defendant and that a person can intelligently and voluntarily waive their 5th and 6th Amendment rights.\u00a0 The opinion then continued to state that there was not an applicable precedent that would support the decision of the appeals court.\u00a0 Their third reason was that the added value of this right is limited because it depends on the defendant\u2019s \u201cawareness of the details of the Government\u2019s case\u201d (United States v Ruiz<\/i> 631).\u00a0 Therefore, there would not be coercion for innocent individuals to plea guilty if there was impeachment information present.\u00a0 Lastly, the opinion listed a number of ways, if put into effect, this right would hurt the Government\u2019s ability to do its job of securing guilty pleas and investigating. \u00a0Further it would limit its resources to do these jobs.\u00a0 Justice Breyer sums up his opinion by stating that the need for this information was considered in regard to fairness of the trial rather than voluntariness of the plea.\u00a0 Justice Thomas concurs although only believes one of the Court\u2019s reasonings should apply, that the value of the help would not provide as much benefit to the defendant.<\/p>\n
When I first read this case I was surprised how the agreement was unanimous.\u00a0 The reason for this could be that this case was clear cut.\u00a0 Although, it is surprising to see this vote breakdown, considering all the landmark Supreme Court cases we have read.\u00a0 I wonder if the facts were not as clean if the vote breakdown would be different.\u00a0 Or is this a right that the Court agrees should never be given to the defendant?\u00a0 This case was also brought up in 2002, which was during the Rehnquist Court, a more conservative court.\u00a0 Would the decision and breakdown have been different in say, the Warren Court?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This case raises the legal question \u201cDoes a prosecutor\u2019s failure, before entering into a plea agreement with the defendant, to disclose impeachment information violate the Fifth and Six Amendments?\u201d Angela Ruiz was found with 30 kilograms of marijuana in her luggage by immigration agents.\u00a0 After being arrested, Ruiz was offered …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-v-ruiz","column","twocol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}