Whether Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 prohibits a district court from discussing sentencing options with a defendant at the sentencing hearing

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Whether Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 prohibits a district court from discussing sentencing options with a defendant at the sentencing hearing, when the plea has been accepted, but the court has not yet accepted the plea agreement and suggests that it will not accept the agreement if the defendant does not yield to the district court’s constraints. In particular, the district court, who had not yet accepted the plea agreement, told Reid at sentencing, that it would impose a sentence much higher than the negotiated agreement of 240-months imprisonment if Reid did not want to comply with the terms of the plea agreement. The sentence the district court warned it would impose (34 years) was the calculation from the presentence report for all the offenses charged in the indictment, including sentence calculations for six counts to which Reid had not pled guilty. The district court failed to inform Reid that he would be allowed to withdraw the guilty plea if the district court declined to accept the plea agreement, which the court indicated it would do if Reid persisted in asking for the guideline range as calculated in the presentence report, which was 106-117 months for the counts to which he pled guilty. i