Fact-Bargaining: An American Phenomenon

The Probation Officers' survey suggests that there is considerable "fact-bargaining" going in federal courts. By that it is meant that plea agree ments are being drawn up for use in sentencing to provide guideline calculations that are not accurate or complete in all respects. Comments in the survey suggest that in order to protect such agreements, prosecutors sometimes limit the access of the proba tion officer to information about the offense or may even go so far as to instruct agents not to discuss the case with the probation officer. When a dispute over facts does occur between the version of the offense