Case Name: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Juan G. RIOS, Defendant-Appellant
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1980-11-14
Citations: 637 F.2d 728
Docket Number: No. 80-1406
Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Juan G. RIOS, Defendant-Appellant.
Judges: Before SETH, Chief Judge, and HOLLOWAY and McKAY, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 637
Pages: 728–731

Head Matter:
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Juan G. RIOS, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 80-1406.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted July 10, 1980.
Decided Nov. 14, 1980.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 12, 1980.
Mark C. Dow of Clayburgh, Ashby, Rose & Paskind, Albuquerque, N. M., for defendant-appellant.
James F. Blackmer, Asst. U. S. Atty., Albuquerque, N. M. (R. E. Thompson, U. S. Atty., Albuquerque, N. M., with him, on brief), for plaintiff-appellee.
Before SETH, Chief Judge, and HOLLOWAY and McKAY, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
SETH, Chief Judge.
This Abney appeal is taken from denial of a motion to bar retrial based on the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment. The only issue is whether the prosecutor's behavior during the first trial constituted deliberate misconduct intended to provoke a mistrial motion and whether the double jeopardy clause is thus invoked to bar retrial. See United States v. Dinitz, 424 U.S. 600, 96 S.Ct. 1075, 47 L.Ed.2d 267. Defendant Rios at his first trial was convicted by a jury of possession of heroin with intent to distribute. Defense counsel moved for a mistrial after the prosecution's closing argument urging that improper remarks had prejudiced the defendant. The motion was denied. We reversed the conviction in United States v. Rios, 611 F.2d 1335 (10th Cir.), because prosecutorial misconduct prevented a fair trial.
Defendant moved at his second trial to bar retrial based on double jeopardy. An evidentiary hearing was held on the issue, and the motion was denied. This appeal followed.
This case is somewhat different from the Dinitz line of cases in which prosecutorial misconduct actually caused a mistrial to be granted in the trial court. Here, the mistrial motion was denied. The same procedural situation was however presented to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Potter, 478 Pa. 251, 386 A.2d 918. See also the comment, The Double Jeopardy Clause and Mistrials Granted on Defendant's Motion: What Kind of Prosecutorial Misconduct Precludes Reprosecution? 18 Duquesne L.Rev. 103 (1979). Although equally divided on the final judgment, the majority of the justices in Potter concluded that reversal of a conviction for prosecutorial misconduct after a mistrial has been denied should be treated the same for purposes of double jeopardy analysis as if the mistrial had been granted in the first instance, and said:
"As we have noted, appellant's mistrial motions during the course of the second trial were denied, but were later deemed meritorious by the court en banc, with the result that a new trial was awarded. The question then arises whether the fact that a new trial was the result of a decision by a reviewing court rather than the declaration of a mistrial by the trial judge requires that the exceptions to the Ball principle cannot be considered. We think not; a distinction between granting a new trial at the urging of a defendant and ordering a mistrial at his request is without significance foi double jeopardy purposes. Recent cases in the Supreme Court of the United States have emphasized that in the field of federal criminal practice the applicability of double jeopardy analysis is not dependent on nice procedural distinctions."
We conclude that double jeopardy considerations applicable after a mistrial has been granted are indeed applicable in the same manner when prosecutorial misconduct requires reversal of a conviction for lack of a fair trial after a mistrial motion has been denied. We have dealt with the standard for retrial after a mistrial is caused by prosecutorial misconduct in United States v. Leonard, 593 F.2d 951, 954 (10th Cir.). We there stated:
"The Double Jeopardy Clause does protect a defendant against governmental actions intended to provoke mistrial requests and thereby to subject defendants to the substantial burdens imposed by multiple prosecutions. It bars retrials where 'bad-faith conduct by judge or prosecutor,' United States v. Jorn, supra, at [400 U.S. 470] 485, [91 S.Ct. 547 at 557, 27 L.Ed.2d 543] threatens the '[harassment of an accused by successive prosecutions or declaration of a mistrial so as to afford the prosecution a more favorable opportunity to convict' the defendant."
See also our United States v. Brooks, 599 F.2d 943, 945 (10th Cir.):
"In Dinitz, the Supreme Court held that a request by a defendant for a mistrial ordinarily removes any barrier to his.re-prosecution, even if the request is prompted by prosecutorial or judicial error. Under Dinitz, the only exception'to the general rule is where bad faith conduct by the judge or prosecutor threatens harassment of an accused by successive prosecution so as to afford the prosecution a more favorable opportunity to convict."
Accord, United States v. Clayborne, 584 F.2d 346 (10th Cir.); United States v. Nelson, 582 F.2d 1246 (10th Cir.); United States v. Rumpf, 576 F.2d 818 (10th Cir.); United States v. Buzzard, 540 F.2d 1383 (10th Cir.).
Thus " '[t]he Double Jeopardy Clause does protect a defendant against governmental actions intended to provoke mistrial requests and thereby to subject defendants to the substantial burdens imposed by multiple prosecutions.' " United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 94, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 2195, 57 L.Ed.2d 65, citing United States v. Dinitz, 424 U.S. at 611, 96 S.Ct. at 1081.
Under this standard, retrial is allowable here because the record demonstrates that the prosecutor did not intend to cause a mistrial request to further the chances of conviction. The trial court so found. At the hearing on the motion to bar reprosecution, the prosecutor testified that he definitely did not want to retry the case for several reasons.
The trial court found no action by the prosecution was intended to cause a mistrial, and the evidence supports this finding. Although such prosecutorial misconduct is not to be condoned, "bad faith in the abstract does not help the defendant in any event. It must be bad faith, the impact of which provokes a mistrial request." United States v. Leonard, 593 F.2d 951, 954 (10th Cir.).
We cannot conclude under the circumstances revealed in the record that provoking a mistrial request was a motive of the prosecutor. The record instead indicates that a very strong case had been made against the defendant, that government witnesses might not be again available, and that no purpose would have been served by forcing a mistrial in order to enhance the prosecution's opportunity for conviction at another trial.
AFFIRMED.