Hunter v. United States · ¶135

Moreover, the Court's policy reasoning overlooks important drawbacks to its approach. For one thing, it is not obvious that this rule will provide fairness to defendants. After all, “in the long term,” uncertainty about whether an appeal waiver will be enforced “eliminate[s] a bargaining tool to convince the government to drop pending charges.” Portis v. United States, 33 F. 4th 331, 336 (CA6 2022). Defendants like Hunter, therefore, may have to forgo other valuable consideration to obtain similarly lenient sentences. A “sounder” approach is “to permit the interested parties to enter into knowing and voluntary negotiations without any arbitrary limits on their bargaining chips.” Mezzanatto, 513 U. S., at 208. For another, the Court's approach may lead to a food of new meritless sentencing appeals. One study concluded that, as of 2003, 65% of plea agreements in federal cases contained…

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