Ellis

This case involves the extent of a district court’s discretion to reject a charge bargain in a proposed plea agreement.

Facts

Marciano Carlos Ellis was indicted for first degree murder. 1 According to the statement of facts in his signed plea agreement, he called a taxicab on Friday, March 5, 1999 from a payphone in front of a doughnut shop. Donald Ray Barker, a 46 year old cabdriver, picked him up a few minutes later, a little after 8:00 p.m. Some time between then and 8:20, when Mr. Barker’s dead body was found in the cab, Ellis shot him three times in the back of the head.

Ellis killed Barker on Fort Lewis, a military reservation, so there was federal jurisdiction, and, though sixteen years old when he murdered Barker, Ellis was transferred to adult prosecution. 2 Ellis and the U.S. Attorney’s office negotiated a plea agreement providing that Ellis would plead guilty to second degree murder (he was indicted for first degree murder), and “if the Court decides on a sentence other than 132 months, either party may withdraw from the Plea Agreement.” In the agreement, Ellis acknowledged that the government had agreed “not to prosecute all the criminal charges which the…