Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-15-01044/USCOURTS-ca8-15-01044-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 15-1044

___________________________

Richard Litschewski

lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner - Appellee

v.

RobertDooley,Warden;MartyJ.Jackley,AttorneyGeneral oftheState ofSouthDakota

lllllllllllllllllllllRespondents - Appellants

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of South Dakota - Aberdeen

____________

 Submitted: May 12, 2015

 Filed: July 9, 2015

____________

Before RILEY, Chief Judge, MURPHY and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

____________

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. 

A jury found Richard Litschewski guilty of three child sex crimes in South

Dakota state court, and separate judgments of conviction were entered for each

offense. After Litschewski was sentenced to serve three consecutive terms of

imprisonment, the state supreme court reversed the sentences because the trial court

had not complied with a state law which required multiple sentences to be ordered

Appellate Case: 15-1044 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/09/2015 Entry ID: 4293409 
chronologically according to the time each offense was committed. On remand the

trial court rearranged the sentences in chronological order, and the state supreme

court affirmed. Litschewski then brought this 28 U.S.C. § 2254 action alleging that

his rearranged sentences imposed multiple punishments for the same offense in

violation of the double jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution. The district

court granted his petition and vacated one of his sentences. We reverse and remand.

Litschewski was charged with three child sex crimes in 1997. The first count

of the indictment alleged that he had raped a child in 1991, the second count alleged

a 1989 rape, and the third count alleged sexual contact with a child in 1996. A jury

found Litschewski guilty of all three counts, and the trial court entered separate

judgments of conviction for each crime. The court ordered Litschewski to serve three

consecutive sentences: 7.5 years on count one, 12.5 years on count two, and 7.5 years

on count three, for a total 27.5 years of imprisonment. The state supreme court

affirmed the convictions on direct appeal. 

In 2009 Litschewski filed a collateral motion to correct his sentence, arguing

that S.D. Codified Laws § 22-6-6.1 (1997) required consecutive sentences be served

chronologically in the order that each offense had been committed. That meant that

a sentence for a prior in time offense should be served before a later one, and

Litschewski had been ordered to serve his sentence for the 1991 rape before his

sentence for a 1989 rape. The state supreme court agreed that there had been

sentencing error, and it reversed and remanded for resentencing in accordance with

§ 22-6-6.1. 

On remand the state trial court rearranged the sentences to be served in

chronological sequence, ordering that Litschewski serve 12.5 years on count two

before serving 7.5 years on count one. It credited all the time that Litschewski had

served on count one toward his sentencesfor the later offenses. This arrangement did

not increase the total term of his imprisonment. Litschewski then moved to modify

-2-

Appellate Case: 15-1044 Page: 2 Date Filed: 07/09/2015 Entry ID: 4293409 
his sentence, asserting that he had served his entire 7.5 year sentence on count one

before the court had rearranged his sentencesin chronological order. In Litschewski's

view, the state court's order technically required him to serve his sentence on count

one a second time, even though the full 7.5 years he had served on that sentence had

been credited to his total period of incarceration. He argued that the rearrangement

violated the double jeopardy clause's protection against multiple punishmentsfor the

same offense. The state trial court denied his motion, and the state supreme court

summarily affirmed. 

Then Litschewski filed an amended § 2254 petition in the district court,

alleging the same double jeopardy violation he had argued on his state court motion. 

Acknowledging the absence of direct Supreme Court precedent, the district court

cited a dissenting opinion by Justice Scalia which stated that "The Double Jeopardy

Clause is and has always been, not a provision designed to assure reason and justice

in the particular case, but the embodiment of technical, prophylactic rules" that may

"release a criminal deserving of punishment" in a particular case "for the greater

purpose of assuring repose in the totality of criminal prosecutions and

sentences . . . . The State broke the rules here, and must abide by the result." Jones

v. Thomas, 491 U.S. 376, 396 (1989) (Scalia, J., dissenting). 

In ruling on Litschewski's petition, the district court concluded that even

though the state trial court had not increased his total term of imprisonment and had

credited the 7.5 years he had originally served on count one toward fulfilling his other

sentences, the state court order rearranging his sentences had technically required him

to serve his sentence on count one a second time in violation of the double jeopardy

clause's protection against multiple punishments for the same offense. The district

court granted Litschewski's habeas petition which had challenged his sentence on

count one. The state of South Dakota appeals. 

-3-

Appellate Case: 15-1044 Page: 3 Date Filed: 07/09/2015 Entry ID: 4293409 
We "review legal issues presented in a habeas petition de novo, but we review

any underlying factual findings for clear error." Nunley v. Bowersox, 784 F.3d 468,

471 (8th Cir. 2015). Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of

1996 (AEDPA), "an application for a writ of habeas corpus may not be granted unless

the state court's decision was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,

clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United

States." Armstrong v. Hobbs, 698 F.3d 1063, 1065 (8th Cir. 2012) (citing 28 U.S.C.

§ 2254(d)(1)). A decision is contrary to federal law "if a state court has arrived at a

conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a question of law or if

it confronted facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme

Court precedent but arrived at an opposite result." Davis v. Norris, 423 F.3d 868, 874

(8th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). A state court "unreasonably

applies clearly established federal law when it identifies the correct governing legal

principle from the Supreme Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle

to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

Determining "whether a state court's decision resulted from an unreasonable

legal or factual conclusion does not require that there be an opinion from the state

court explaining the state court's reasoning." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 98

(2011). If a "state court's decision is unaccompanied by an explanation, the habeas

petitioner's burden still must be met by showing there was no reasonable basis for the

state court to deny relief." Id. The "question under AEDPA is not whether a federal

court believes the state court's determination was incorrect but whether that

determination was unreasonable—a substantially higher threshold." Broom v.

Denney, 659 F.3d 658, 661 (8th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). A

"state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludesfederal habeasrelief so

long as fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the state court's

decision." Harrington, 562 U.S. at 101 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

-4-

Appellate Case: 15-1044 Page: 4 Date Filed: 07/09/2015 Entry ID: 4293409 
Litschewski argues that the state court violated the double jeopardy clause's

"protection against multiple punishments for the same offense" by rearranging his

sentences in chronological order, crediting the 7.5 years he had already served on

count one toward his sentence on count two, and ordering him to serve the sentence

on count one again after serving the earlier in time sentence on count two. United

States v. Abboud, 273 F.3d 763, 766 (8th Cir. 2001). Litschewski has not identified

any Supreme Court precedent that squarely addresses whether the double jeopardy

clause would bar a state court from rearranging the order in which a defendant must

serve the counts that make up a consecutive sentence after the defendant has fully

served one of those counts. He points out, however, that "the Constitution was

designed as much to prevent the criminal from being twice punished for the same

offence asfrom being twice tried for it," Ex parte Lange, 85 U.S. 163, 173 (1873), the

double jeopardy clause exists to "protect the integrity of a final judgment," United

States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 92 (1978), and a defendant has an "expectation of

finality" in a sentence after all appeals have concluded and his sentence has been

served, see United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. 117, 136 (1980).

1

Evaluating "whether a rule application was unreasonable requires considering

the rule's specificity." Harrington, 562 U.S. at 101. The "more general the rule, the

more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case by case determinations." Id. 

It "is not an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law for a state

court to decline to apply a specific legal rule that has not been squarely established

by [the Supreme] Court.” Id. (internal citations omitted). The "high level of

generality" used by Litschewski to describe the Supreme Court precedent that he

claims was unreasonably applied by the state court, see Nevada v. Jackson, 133 S. Ct.

Litschewski also asserts that because he only appealed his sentence on count

1

two, the state trial court lacked authority to alter his sentence on count one. He has

however failed to cite any additional Supreme Court authority on this point. See

Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 779 (2010); 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). 

-5-

Appellate Case: 15-1044 Page: 5 Date Filed: 07/09/2015 Entry ID: 4293409 
1990, 1994 (2013), indicates that "fairminded jurists could disagree on the

correctness of the state court's decision," Harrington, 562 U.S. at 101. 

Furthermore, in "themultiple punishments context," the double jeopardy clause

"is limited to ensuring that the total punishment did not exceed that authorized by the

legislature." Jones v. Thomas, 491 U.S. 376, 381 (1989). In Jones, the Supreme

Court upheld a state court's alteration of a defendant's sentence after he was

improperly sentenced to serve terms of imprisonment for both felony murder and the

underlying felony of attempted robbery. Id. at 378, 387. After "it became apparent

that two consecutive sentences had been imposed where state law permitted but one,"

the state "court vacated the attempted robbery conviction and sentence and credited

the time that respondent had served under that conviction against the remaining

sentence for felony murder," even though the defendant had already served his

sentence for attempted robbery. Id. at 378, 382. The Supreme Court concluded that

the altered sentence had not violated the "double jeopardy prohibition against

multiple punishments" because the defendant was still serving a sentence that had

been authorized by the legislature. Id. at 380–82, 382 n.2. 

Litschewski does not dispute that the state court was permitted by statute to

impose a 7.5 year sentence on count one, a 12.5 year sentence on count two, and a 7.5

year sentence on count three for a total term of 27.5 consecutive yearsimprisonment. 

A fairminded jurist could conclude that the state court's chronological rearrangement

of the three sentences did not impose a "total punishment" exceeding "that authorized

by the legislature," but rather corrected a clerical error by the sentencing court. See

Jones, 491 U.S. at 381–82. The "Constitution does not require thatsentencing should

be a game in which a wrong move by the judge means immunity for the prisoner" and

"neither the Double Jeopardy Clause nor any other constitutional provision exists to

provide unjustified windfalls" to defendants. Id. at 387 (internal quotations omitted). 

Given that the state court here, as in Jones, credited Litschewski for time served and

imposed terms of imprisonment that had been authorized by the legislature, we

-6-

Appellate Case: 15-1044 Page: 6 Date Filed: 07/09/2015 Entry ID: 4293409 
conclude that Supreme Court precedent provides a "reasonable basis" for fairminded

jurists to disagree on the correctness of the state court's chronological rearrangement

of Litschewski's sentence. Harrington, 562 U.S. at 98, 101. 

For these reasons we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand for

entry of judgment denying Litschewski's amended petition under § 2254.

______________________________

-7-

Appellate Case: 15-1044 Page: 7 Date Filed: 07/09/2015 Entry ID: 4293409