> However, besides the point, is "misleading the public and the defendant" a professional standard for federal prosecutors?
I think this strategy is par for the course because it generates a situation the prosecutors control, similar to the anchoring strategy used during business negotiations. You've just undermined the position of the defendant at no cost to yourself. As long as prosecutors careers do not depend on justice but on cases won this will likely continue or even get worse.
Right now there's an opening to deal with the fact that it has become par for the course, with the problem of careerism and point-scoring with people's freedom.
Yes and that window of opportunity is already slowly closing, the real pressure points are that technicalities and an overly literal interpretation of the law should not trump morality, that selective prosecution is rife with abuse and another important area is that justice should be about actual justice rather than career advancement as well as the negotiation tactics involved in plea bargaining.
In addition to repealing the CFAA, I'd like to see some hard character standards imposed for government prosecutors, some legal requirements and tests imposed on Bar Associations for the benefit of the public against and for whom they serve. We can call it "Carmen's Law."