United States v. Thornton

The government (plaintiff) prosecuted Thornton and 13 co-defendants on drug charges. Nine of the fourteen struck plea deals and agreed to testify against Thornton and three other key defendants. At trial, the government introduced both the proffer letters offering the deals and the signed plea agreements, all of which repeatedly stressed that any leniency depended on truthful testimony. The judge instructed the jury that it alone judged witness credibility, that no inference should be drawn merely from a co-defendant's plea bargain, and that the cooperating witnesses' testimony deserved whatever weight the jury thought it merited. The four convicted defendants appealed, arguing the proffer letters and plea agreements should have been excluded.