United States v. Michael Lustig

I join the court’s opinion but write separately to highlight one aspect of the court’s reasoning that I cannot fully embrace. The court holds that, even though we are reversing in part the district court’s denial of Lustig’s motion to suppress, he’s not automatically entitled to withdraw his guilty plea. Instead, the court concludes that we must engage in “harmless error review” to determine whether the district court’s partially erroneous denial of the motion “contributed to [Lustig’s] decision to plead guilty.” Maj. op. at 1087, 1090.

I do not think Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure…