Case Name: James H. TURNER, Petitioner-Appellee, v. STATE OF TENNESSEE, Respondent-Appellant
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1991-08-07
Citations: 940 F.2d 1000
Docket Number: No. 90-5109
Parties: James H. TURNER, Petitioner-Appellee, v. STATE OF TENNESSEE, Respondent-Appellant.
Judges: Before KEITH, MARTIN, and RYAN, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 940
Pages: 1000–1004

Head Matter:
James H. TURNER, Petitioner-Appellee, v. STATE OF TENNESSEE, Respondent-Appellant.
No. 90-5109.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued Dec. 5, 1990.
Decided Aug. 7, 1991.
J. Russell Heldman, Edward M. Yar-brough (argued), Hollins, Wagster & Yar-brough, Nashville, Tenn., for petitioner-ap-pellee.
Kimberly Hattaway, Asst. Atty. Gen., Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen., C. Anthony Daughtrey, Asst. Atty. Gen., (argued), Office of Atty. Gen., of Tenn., Nashville, Tenn., for respondent-appellant.
Before KEITH, MARTIN, and RYAN, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
BOYCE F. MARTIN, Jr., Circuit Judge.
In our prior.decision in this case we held that the due process clause of the four teenth amendment requires the State of Tennessee to provide a showing that the withdrawal of a former plea offer to a habeas corpus petitioner who was unconstitutionally deprived of effective assistance of counsel at the pre-trial stage was free of a reasonable apprehension of prosecutorial vindictiveness. Turner v. Tennessee, 858 F.2d 1201 (6th Cir.1988). The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case for consideration in light of Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. 794, 109 S.Ct. 2201, 104 L.Ed.2d 865 (1989), in which the Court found no judicial vindictiveness "where a second sentence imposed after a trial is heavier than a first sentence imposed [by the same judge] after a guilty plea." Id. 490 U.S. at 803, 109 S.Ct. at 2207, 104 L.Ed.2d at 875. On remand, the district court concluded that the Alabama v. Smith analysis should have no effect on the present case, but ultimately relied on other grounds in making its decision. We agree with the district court that Alabama v. Smith does not apply, and therefore affirm the district court's original opinion, 664 F.Supp. 1113, on that basis.
Because the facts of this case have been set forth in two prior opinions, Turner v. Tennessee, 664 F.Supp. 1113 (M.D.Tenn. 1987), aff'd, 858 F.2d 1201 (6th Cir.1988), we state only the essential facts. At some time prior to February 9, 1991, the State of Tennessee, through Assistant District Attorney General John Zimmerman, offered James Turner a two-year prison term in return for a guilty plea to simple kidnapping for the abduction and murder of Monte Hudson. On the unconstitutionally ineffective advice of counsel, Turner declined. Turner was thereafter tried and convicted of one count of felony murder and two counts of aggravated kidnapping. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder plus forty years for each kidnapping count.
Turner was granted a new trial on the grounds that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel in deciding to reject the two-year plea offer. Plea negotiations were reopened; however, Assistant District Attorney General Zimmerman, again representing the interests of the State of Tennessee, refused to offer Turner a plea bargain of less than twenty years imprisonment. After exhausting all possible state remedies, Turner sought relief from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. The district court determined that the appropriate remedy for the deprivation of Turner's sixth amendment rights would be a new plea hearing during which a rebuttable presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness would attach to any plea offer made by the State in excess of its original two-year offer. A prior panel of this court affirmed the district court's decision. We now reconsider that holding in light of Alabama v. Smith.
We find Alabama v. Smith to be inapplicable to the present case because the controversy before us was neither borne of the same circumstances nor would it satisfy the rationale underpinning the Alabama v. Smith holding. Alabama v. Smith addressed the appropriate standard for determining the possibility of vindictiveness on the part of a sentencing judge where that judge had previously imposed a lesser penalty pursuant to a guilty plea. In Smith, the trial judge sentenced the defendant to two concurrent terms of thirty years imprisonment under the terms of a plea agreement between the prosecution and the defendant. 490 U.S. at 796, 109 S.Ct. at 2203. Under that agreement, a third charge was dropped. Thereafter, Smith successfully challenged the validity of his guilty plea and was tried on the original three charges before the same trial judge. Id. Smith was convicted of all the charges against him and was sentenced to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment and one consecutive term of 150 years imprisonment. Id.
Smith challenged his increased sentence because of the reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing judge, similar to that found in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969) (presumption of judicial vindictiveness arises where defendant receives greater penalty upon recon-viction after the first conviction has been overturned on appeal and remanded for a new trial). The Supreme Court rejected Smith's challenge stating,
[w]hen a greater penalty is imposed after trial than was imposed after a prior guilty plea, the increase in sentence is not more likely than not attributable to the vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing judge. Even when the same judge imposes both sentences, the relevant sentencing information available to the judge after the plea will usually be considerably less than that available after a trial_ As this case demonstrates, in the course of the proof at trial the judge may gather a fuller appreciation of the nature and extent of the crimes charged. The defendant's conduct during trial may give the judge insights into his moral character and suitability for rehabilitation. Finally, after trial, the factors that may have indicated leniency as consideration for the guilty plea are no longer present.
Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. at 801, 109 S.Ct. at 2206 (citations omitted).
These factors distinguish Alabama v. Smith from the Court's holding in Pearce because
[tjhere, the sentencing judge who presides at both trials can be expected to operate in the context of roughly the same sentencing considerations after the second trial as he does after the first; any unexplained change in the sentence is therefore subject to a presumption of vindictiveness.
Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. at 802, 109 S.Ct. at 2206.
At the most cursory level, the case before us is easily distinguishable from Alabama v. Smith because it involves a question of prosecutorial rather than judicial vindictiveness. The Court in Alabama v. Smith simply did not speak to prosecutorial conduct other than to reiterate in a footnote that a realistic likelihood of vindictiveness is necessary before a presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness can be applied. Id. 490 U.S. at 800, 109 S.Ct. at 2205, 104 L.Ed.2d at 873 n. 3; see also United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368, 102 S.Ct. 2485, 73 L.Ed.2d 74 (1982) (discussing criteria for determining when a realistic likelihood of prosecutorial retaliation exists). We find nothing in Alabama v. Smith to disturb the Court's prior holding in Goodwin, and therefore our position remains consistent that Goodwin requires a presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness in this case. Turner v. Tennessee, 858 F.2d at 1208.
At a more meaningful level however, the present case is not only factually distinct from Alabama v. Smith, but logically distinct as well. The concern stated by the Court in Smith — that a sentencing judge be free to weigh the various factors that come to light during a trial which may not have been revealed at the pre-trial stage— does not arise in this case. The prosecution is unlikely to gain any new insight as to the moral character of the defendant, the nature and extent of the crime, or the defendant's suitability for rehabilitation at the conclusion of trial that it did not already possess from its extended investigation. Rather, the prosecution in such circumstances "can be expected to operate in the context of roughly the same sentencing considerations .; any unexplained change in the sentence is therefore subject to a presumption of vindictiveness." Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. at 802, 109 S.Ct. at 874.
For the foregoing reasons, we find our prior decision in this case to be unaffected by Alabama v. Smith, and therefore affirm the judgment of the district court that the ease be returned to the state forum where the prosecution may rescind its original plea offer only upon overcoming a presumption of vindictiveness.