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In U.S. criminal law, a proffer agreement, proffer letter, proffer, or "Queen for a Day" letter is a written agreement between a prosecutor and a defendant or prospective witness that allows the defendant or witness to give the prosecutor information about an alleged crime, while limiting the prosecutor's ability to use that information against him or her. [1]
As part of the agreement, the subject may agree to create a statement, known as a proffer statement, setting out their testimony. A meeting in which proffer agreements and statements are negotiated or set out is called a proffer session. [2] The proffer testimony may be recorded as video evidence, in which case it is known as a proffer video. [3]
A proffer does not ensure immunity; however, it often involves a deal for leniency. For instance, a defendant might secure a recommendation for a lighter sentence or other significant advantages in return for providing valuable and truthful information. [4]
Although the statement from the proffer agreement may not be used by the prosecutors, it often results in discovery of new evidence, which then may be used. For this reason, many defendants are reluctant to engage in a proffer agreement. [5] [6]
Examples of proffer agreements include:
A plea bargain is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or nolo contendere. This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of the several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence.
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989.
Legal immunity, or immunity from prosecution, is a legal status wherein an individual or entity cannot be held liable for a violation of the law, in order to facilitate societal aims that outweigh the value of imposing liability in such cases. Such legal immunity may be from criminal prosecution, or from civil liability, or both. The most notable forms of legal immunity are parliamentary immunity and witness immunity. One author has described legal immunity as "the obverse of a legal power":
A party has an immunity with respect to some action, object or status, if some other relevant party – in this context, another state or international agency, or citizen or group of citizens – has no (power) right to alter the party's legal standing in point of rights or duties in the specified respect. There is a wide range of legal immunities that may be invoked in the name of the right to rule. In international law, immunities may be created when states assert powers of derogation, as is permitted, for example, from the European Convention on Human Rights "in times of war or other public emergency." Equally familiar examples include the immunities against prosecution granted to representatives and government officials in pursuit of their duties. Such legal immunities may be suspect as potential violations of the rule of law, or regarded as quite proper, as necessary protections for the officers of the state in the rightful pursuit of their duties.
In the legal system of the United States, a Brady disclosure consists of exculpatory or impeaching information and evidence that is material to the guilt or innocence or to the punishment of a defendant. The term comes from the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, in which the Supreme Court ruled that suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to a defendant who has requested it violates due process.
A criminal turns state's evidence by admitting guilt and testifying as a witness for the state against their associate(s) or accomplice(s), often in exchange for leniency in sentencing or immunity from prosecution. The testimony of a witness who testifies against co-conspirator(s) may be important evidence.
Shareef Cousin is an African-American man from New Orleans who was convicted of the first-degree murder of Michael Gerardi in 1996 and sentenced to death as a juvenile in Louisiana. At age 17, he became the youngest condemned convict to be put on death row in Louisiana, and one of the youngest in the United States.
Witness immunity from prosecution occurs when a prosecutor grants immunity to a witness in exchange for testimony or production of other evidence.
John Leslie Brownlee is an American lawyer. He was the United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2001 to 2008.
The Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal involves an alleged one-night sexual encounter between businessman and former U.S. president Donald Trump and pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, a conspiracy on the part of Trump to cover up the story in the month prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and Trump's falsification of business records as part of the conspiracy. The story broke in 2018, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen paid US$130,000 to Daniels for her silence during the 2016 Trump campaign.
The two criminal trials of Paul Manafort were the first cases brought to trial by the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Manafort served as campaign chair for the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign from June 20 to August 19, 2016. In July 2017, the FBI conducted a raid of Manafort's home, authorized by search warrant under charges of interference in the 2016 election. Manafort and his business assistant Rick Gates were both indicted and arrested in October 2017 for charges of conspiracy against the United States, making false statements, money laundering, and failing to register as foreign agents for Ukraine. Gates entered a plea bargain in February 2018.
Lev Parnas is a Soviet-born American businessman and former associate of Rudy Giuliani. Parnas, Giuliani, Igor Fruman, John Solomon, Yuriy Lutsenko, Dmytro Firtash and his allies, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, were involved in creating the false Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, which is part of the Trump–Ukraine scandal's efforts to damage Joe Biden. As president, Donald Trump said he did not know Parnas or what he was involved in; Parnas insisted Trump "knew exactly what was going on".
Sidney Katherine Powell is an American attorney, former federal prosecutor, and conspiracy theorist who attempted to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. In August 2023, she was indicted along with Donald Trump and eighteen others in the prosecution related to the 2020 election in Georgia, arising from the attempt by the former president and his allies to subvert the election outcome in Georgia and other key states lost by Trump. In October 2023, as part of an agreement with Georgia prosecutors, she pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties. She was sentenced to six years of probation and agreed to testify against the other defendants.
After the results of the 2020 United States presidential election determined U.S. president Donald Trump had lost, a scheme was devised by him, his associates and Republican Party officials in seven states to subvert the election by creating and submitting fraudulent certificates of ascertainment to falsely claim Trump had won the electoral college vote in those states. The intent of the scheme was to pass the fraudulent certificates to then-vice president Mike Pence in the hope he would count them, rather than the authentic certificates, and thus overturn Joe Biden's victory. This scheme was defended by a fringe legal theory developed by Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman, detailed in the Eastman memos, which claimed a vice president has the constitutional discretion to swap official electors with an alternate slate during the certification process, thus changing the outcome of the electoral college vote and the overall winner of the presidential race. The scheme came to be known as the Pence Card. By June 2024, dozens of Republican state officials and Trump associates had been indicted in five states for their alleged involvement. The federal Smith special counsel investigation is investigating Trump's role in the events. Testimony has revealed that Trump was fully aware of the fake electors scheme, and knew that Eastman's plan for Pence to obstruct the certification of electoral votes was a violation of the Electoral Count Act.
An ongoing special counsel investigation was opened by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on November 18, 2022, to continue two investigations initiated by the Justice Department (DOJ) regarding former U.S. President Donald Trump. Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor, to lead the independent investigations. Smith was tasked with investigating Trump's role in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and Trump's mishandling of government records, including classified documents.
The United States House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family is an ongoing investigation since January 2023 by the United States House of Representatives into US President Joe Biden and his family. The investigation was initiated on January 11, and includes examination of the foreign business activities of Biden's son, Hunter, and brother, James, as well as Twitter's involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop controversy.
In February 2021, Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis launched a criminal investigation into alleged efforts by then-president Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the certified 2020 election victory of Democratic candidate Joe Biden and award the state's electoral college votes to Trump. A special grand jury recommended indictments in January 2023, followed by a grand jury that indicted Trump and 18 allies in August 2023. The charges include conspiracy, racketeering and other felonies.
United States of America v. Donald J. Trump is a pending federal criminal case against Donald Trump, the president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, regarding his alleged participation in attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election, including his involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack.
The State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump, et al. is a pending criminal case against Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, and 18 co-defendants. The prosecution alleges that Trump led a "criminal racketeering enterprise", in which he and all other defendants "knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome" of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Georgia. All defendants are charged with one count of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, which has a penalty of five to twenty years in prison. The indictment comes in the context of Trump's broader effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election. As of June 2024, it is one of three ongoing criminal indictments against Trump, although proceedings have been indefinitely suspended.
State of Arizona v. Kelli Ward, et al. is a state criminal prosecution concerning the Trump fake electors plot in Arizona. The eighteen defendants, including eleven Arizona Republicans and seven Donald Trump associates, are accused of producing and attempting to use a certificate of ascertainment to falsely claim Trump had won the state's electoral votes in the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Arizona. The eleven fake electors included former Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward, who allegedly led ten other Republicans in signing the fraudulent certificate. The indictment contains nine criminal counts, including felony fraud, forgery and conspiracy.