Opinion ID: 2283170
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alleged Chilling Effect of Appellate Rights

Text: Appellant asserts [s]ince no valid death penalty provision was then in effect [referring to the interim period between Moody and enactment of the new 18 Pa.C.S.A.  1311] the Moody decision clearly granted appellant the option of abandoning his appeal from his conviction and, pursuant to Moody, vacating his sentence of death and replacing it with one of life imprisonment. Brief for Appellant at 18. Because of this, appellant maintains that his appellate rights were somehow chilled. We fail to see the logic of this argument. It is incongruous to suggest that Story's appellate rights were chilled when he in fact vigorously pursued the appeal and won a reversal of his conviction. In Chaffin v. Stynchombe, 412 U.S. 17, 93 S.Ct. 1977, 36 L.Ed.2d 714 (1973), the petitioner was convicted of a capital offense and was sentenced by a jury to a prison term of 15 years. On a federal habeas corpus petition, the district court granted him relief, vacated sentence, and ordered the case returned to the Georgia State Court for retrial. On retrial, petitioner was again convicted and the jury this time sentenced him to life imprisonment. Petitioner asserted that the possibility of a harsher sentence on retrial, even in the absence of a claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness (no such claim is made in the instant case), has an impermissible chilling effect on the exercise of his rights to appeal. The Court disagreed. The criminal process, like the rest of the legal system, is replete with situations requiring `the making of difficult judgments' as to which course to follow . . . . Although a defendant may have a right, even of constitutional dimensions, to follow whichever course he chooses, the Constitution does not by that token always forbid requiring him to choose. Id. at 32, 93 S.Ct. at 1985, quoting Crampton v. Ohio, 402 U.S. 183, 213, 91 S.Ct. 1454, 1470, 28 L.Ed.2d 711 (1971). The Court determined that the choice required in Georgia, (i.e., appeal and take the chance of a more stringent sentence on retrial or fail to appeal and stick with the original sentence) was not forbidden by the constitution. A state may legitimately require the accused to choose whether to accept the risk of a higher sentence or to waive his rights. Id. at 32-33, 93 S.Ct. at 1985-86. The Court further noted: Petitioner was not himself chilled in the exercise of his right to appeal by the possibility of a higher sentence on retrial and we doubt that the chill factor will often be a deterrent of any significance. Unlike the guilty-plea situation and, to a lesser extent, the nonbifurcated capital trial, the likelihood of actually receiving a harsher sentence is quite remote at the time a convicted defendant begins to weigh the question whether he will appeal. Several contingencies must coalesce. First, his appeal must succeed. Second, it must result in an order remanding the case for retrial rather than dismissing outright. Third, the prosecutor must again make the decision to prosecute and the accused must again select trial by jury rather than securing a bench trial or negotiating a plea. Finally, the jury must again convict and then ultimately the jury or the judge must arrive at a harsher sentence in circumstances devoid of a genuine likelihood of vindictiveness. While it may not be wholly unrealistic for a convicted defendant to anticipate the occurrence of each of these events, especially in the infrequent case in which his claim for reversal is strong and his first sentence was unusually low, we cannot agree with petitioner that such speculative prospects interfere with the right to make a free choice whether to appeal. Id. at 33-35, 93 S.Ct. at 1986-1987. The choice occasioned by the possibility of a harsher sentence, even where that choice may in fact be quite difficult, does not place an impermissible burden on the right of a criminal defendant to appeal or attack collaterally his conviction. We agree with Chaffin that any asserted chilling effect on appellate rights (here, we are actually speaking of the right to withdraw an appeal) is too tenuous and speculative to be forbidden by the Constitution. Commonwealth v. Littlejohn, 433 Pa. 336, 250 A.2d 811 (1969) does not require an opposite result. Littlejohn involved two cases wherein the appellants had actually failed to exercise their rights to appeal because of their fear of receiving the death penalty on retrial as opposed to the sentences of life imprisonment that had been imposed by the respective juries. The differences between Littlejohn and Stanton Story's situation are apparent. Story's appellate rights were not chilled in any fashion, nor, as he received the death sentence on both occasions, was he exposed to a risk of a harsher penalty than that meted-out at the first proceeding. [19]