Freeman v. United States

Freeman v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided June 23, 2011
Full case name	Freeman v. United States
Citations	564 U.S. 522 (more)
Holding
When a criminal defendant pleads guilty under a plea deal and the judge imposes the recommended sentence under the Sentencing Guidelines, the defendant is eligible to have their sentence reduced if the Guidelines later change.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Plurality	Kennedy, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan
Concurrence	Sotomayor (in judgment)
Dissent	Roberts, joined by Scalia, Thomas, Alito
Laws applied
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure

Freeman v. United States, 564 U.S. 522 (2011), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that when a criminal defendant pleads guilty under a plea deal and the judge imposes the recommended sentence under the Sentencing Guidelines, the defendant is eligible to have their sentence reduced if the Guidelines later change. Freeman was a plurality decision, so the controlling law is the narrowest point of agreement between five of the justices. In this case, that point comes from Sotomayor's solo concurrence, in which she argued that the convicted defendant could only have their sentence reduced if the plea deal they accepted explicitly stated that it was based on the Sentencing Guidelines.

Background

William Freeman was indicted for various crimes, including possessing with intent to distribute cocaine base. He entered into an agreement to plead guilty to all charges; in return the government agreed to a 106-month sentence. The agreement stated that the parties independently reviewed the applicable guidelines, noted that Freeman agreed to have his sentence determined under the guidelines, and reflected the parties' understanding that the agreed-to sentence corresponded with the minimum sentence suggested by the applicable Guidelines range of 46 to 57 months, along with a consecutive mandatory minimum of 60 months for possessing a firearm in furtherance of the drug-trafficking crime. Three years after the district court accepted the plea agreement, the Commission issued a retroactive Guidelines amendment to remedy the significant disparity between the penalties for cocaine base and powder cocaine offenses. Because the amendment’s effect was to reduce Freeman's applicable sentencing range to 37 to 46 months plus the consecutive 60-month mandatory minimum, he moved for a sentence reduction. However, the district court denied the motion, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed because its precedent rendered defendants sentenced pursuant to plea agreements ineligible for this sort of relief unless there was a miscarriage of justice or mutual mistake.

External links

• Text of Freeman v. United States, 564 U.S. 522 (2011) is available from: Cornell Findlaw Justia

This article incorporates written opinion of a United States federal court. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the text is in the public domain.