For your fourth litigation assignment, you are a law clerk for the federal court judge who will rule on Nick Sutton's motion for a downward departure. Your assignment arrives in the form of the following memo:

MEMORANDUM

To: My New Judicial Clerk

From: Judge Anders Jackson

Re: US v. Sutton: Downward Departure Motion

Welcome aboard as my new judicial clerk! Here's your first assignment. I have decided to grant Nick Sutton's motion for a downward departure. Simply put, I find the motion far more persuasive than the opposition. Here's why.

As I see it, there was a single criminal transaction. Although I realize Sutton lied twice, the conduct after the first lie does not strike me as a second criminal occurrence. Instead, it seems that Sutton was, for a short time, unwilling to confess his crime and therefore reaffirmed the first lie. In this case, the government can hardly disagree because it only charged one count of perjury.

The facts also reflect very little planning for the perjury. There is no dispute that Sutton fabricated the e-mail the same day he learned from his lawyers about the need for written confirmation of the contractual agreement.

From my perspective, Sutton's behavior also appears aberrant. There's no dispute that he's never done anything like this before. I also have no doubt that he will never do it again.

Please prepare a draft decision, for my signature, in which I grant the motion for downward departure. You can use any of the facts from the Motion, Opposition, or Prosecution Version, which should be cited like this: (Motion at page 6) or (Opposition at page 7) or (Prosecution Version at 2).