Price v. U.S. Department of Justice Attorney Office

This case presents the following question: May a criminal defendant, in pleading guilty, waive his right to FOIA requests pertaining to the investigation or prosecution underlying his criminal conviction? Thus far, every court to consider this question has answered “yes.” We are now the first to say “no.” The Court suggests its answer is limited only to this case, but no FOIA guilty-plea waiver could ever meet the standard employed here. Worse still, the Court’s answer rests on a distortion of the Supreme Court’s guilty-plea-waiver jurisprudence—a distortion portending far-reaching, and…