A plea/sentencing ruling of note from the 9th

What a day for appellate court sentencing decisions: the Booker pipeline is flowing, the NY high court is dodging Apprendi, and the First Circuit talks of state/federal disparities.  To all this appellate fun we can also add an interesting Ninth Circuit ruling in US v. Davis, No. 04-50030 (9th Cir. June 9, 2005) (available here). Here is the opening paragraph:

We must decide whether a district court has discretion to permit a defendant to withdraw his guilty plea prior to sentencing when the district court finds that defense counsel “grossly mischaracterized” the defendant’s possible sentence, but also finds that the mischaracterization did not actually prejudice the defendant as is required to invalidate a plea post-sentence. We answer “yes.”  Because the district court did not believe it had such discretion, we vacate and remand for reconsideration of defendant’s motion to withdraw his plea.

Needless to say, this Davis ruling could be of great interest to other defendants seeking to withdraw a plea based on counsel’s pre- or post-Booker/Blakely sentencing advice.