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The Short Answer You can withdraw from a proffer agreement. You can stop the session, instruct your attorney to end the meeting, stand from the conference table in the United States Attorney's Office, and…

The proffer letter is the most dangerous document a federal defendant will sign voluntarily. Not the plea agreement, which at least arrives after both sides have shown their positions. Not the cooperation agreement, which…

Derivative use is the provision in a proffer agreement that most defense attorneys explain too late. The term occupies a single paragraph in the standard federal proffer letter, situated between the clauses governing direct…

The Proffer Letter Use immunity protects less than the phrase suggests. The proffer agreement, sometimes called a "queen for a day" letter, is the document a federal prosecutor places before a defendant or target…

The proffer session decides the case. Not the trial, not the plea conference, not the sentencing memorandum. For the majority of federal defendants who cooperate, the afternoon they spend in the United States Attorney's…

The federal proffer agreement is one of the few legal instruments that simultaneously protects a defendant and constructs the case against them. In theory, the agreement permits a person under investigation to disclose what…

The Credential and Its Shelf Life The credential depreciates. A former assistant United States attorney who crossed into defense practice three years ago carries a different weight than one who made the transition fifteen…

A superseding indictment is the government's revision of the case against you, delivered after you have already begun to organize a defense around the original charges. It does not arrive because the first indictment…

The Conviction Apparatus The federal conviction rate exceeds ninety percent, and the number obscures more than it reveals. Most of that figure represents guilty pleas, not trial verdicts, because the federal system is constructed…

The detention hearing determines more about the trajectory of a federal case than any motion, any plea conference, any sentencing memorandum that follows it. A defendant held in federal custody before trial, which can…