[agwa]

> That's correct the USSG pretty much makes plea agreements non-viable because it doesn't allow the prosecutor to offer any substantial leniency on sentencing, mandatory minimums on pretty much every federal crime also make plea agreements pointless.

You are very wrong.

First of all, the majority of federal crimes do not have mandatory minimums. http://famm.org/Repository/Files/Chart%20All%20Fed%20MMs%202... is an exhaustive list of federal crimes with mandatory minimums. It's only a fraction of the total number of federal crimes.

More importantly, the effect of the Sentencing Guidelines was that it removed sentencing discretion from judges and gave it to prosecutors. That's because the sentencing range given by the guidelines is influenced by what charges the prosecutor brings, and the details of those charges such as quantity of drugs or amount of property damage. This gives the prosecutor enormous influence over the sentence.[1] (Edited to add: In the same way the prosecutor can influence whether a statutory minimum is triggered.)

Consequentially, the plea bargain rate in federal cases is about 97% whereas in states it is somewhat less.

See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/20/why-inn... for a federal judge's take on the situation.

[1] Technically, since U.S. v. Booker in 2005, the sentencing guidelines are only "advisory" so the judge can ignore them, but judges still mostly sentence according to the guidelines.

[kbenson]

There's some real interesting ones in that mandatory minimum doc. For example, "Refusal to operate railroad or telegraph lines " which was created in 1888. You know there's an interesting story behind that one.