DOJ-OGR-00021840.pdf

Case 22-1426, Document 117, 11/01/2024, 3636586, Page16 of 51 one USAO is presumed not to bind other USAOs.4 To the contrary, the weight of authority holds that a representation by the United States Attorney or her agents will bind USAOs in other districts, if not the federal Government as a whole. See Gebbie, 294 F.3d at 550 (“[W]hen a United States Attorney negotiates and contracts on behalf of ‘the United States’ or ‘the Government’ in a plea agreement ... that attorney speaks for and binds all of his or her fellow United States Attorneys with respect to those same crimes and those same defendants. ... United States Attorneys should not be viewed as sovereigns of autonomous fiefdoms.”); U.S. v. Van Thournout, 100 F.3d 590, 594 (8th Cir. 1996) (“Absent an express limitation, any promises made by an [AUSA] in one district will bind an [AUSA] in another district”); Margalli-Olvera v. I.N.S., 43 F.3d 345, 353 (8th Cir. 1994) (“promises made by an [AUSA] in a plea agreement “bind all agents of the United States government”); Thomas v. I.N.S., 35 F.3d 1332 (9th Cir. 1994) (enforcing against the INS a cooperation agreement between defendant and an AUSA promising that “the government” would not oppose defendant’s application for relief from deportation); U.S. v. Levasseur, 846 F.2d 786, 799 (1st Cir. 1988) (expressly declining to apply Annabi in the estoppel context, instead holding that “the representation of any [AUSA] may, in appropriate circumstances, bind the government”). 4 The Seventh Circuit held in U.S. v. Rourke that a plea agreement did not bind the Federal Aviation Administration. See 74 F.3d 802, 807 n.5 (7th Cir. 1996). But Rourke did not go as far as Annabi in ruling that a promise by one USAO is presumptively nonbinding on other USAOs. The Sixth Circuit in U.S. v. Robinson held, on the facts before it, that a plea agreement in the Eastern District of North Carolina was not binding in the Eastern District of Michigan, but explicitly declined to take a position on Annabi’s broader rule. See 924 F.2d 612, 613 (6th Cir. 1991). 11 DOJ-OGR-00021840