3. Pleas.

When fashioning plea offers and resolutions:

a) Deputies will continue to take into account harm to the victim and the victim's need for justice.

b) Deputies will continue to take defendant's rehabilitative needs and background into account and encourage defense counsel and others to provide information on those needs. This will include relying on mental health or drug treatment needs before pleading or recommending a prison sentence. I have already encouraged this with defense attorneys and will continue to do so.

c) When appropriate, Deputies will consider alternatives to prison that limit collateral consequences while accounting for public safety (e.g., house arrest).

d) Deputies will continue to consider whether a person can safely reside in a community-based residential program, rather than in prison.

e) Deputies will avoid conditioning a plea on the timing of a motion hearing in victimless crimes unless there is an appropriate reason, such as a vulnerable victim.

f) Deputies will encourage judicial discretion by leaving sentence recommendations "open" in plea agreements when appropriate.