Opinion ID: 2372846
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: specific enforcement of the plea agreement and prosecutorial vindictiveness

Text: Appellant urges this Court to apply contract law principles to the 1986 plea agreement and order its specific enforcement. Because he entered a plea of guilty before the trial court, appellant argues he detrimentally relied on the promise of the Commonwealth in taking no action inconsistent with the agreement, i.e., that the Commonwealth upon retrial would continue to recommend the sentence bargained for within the original plea agreement. When this Court in Haight, supra , vacated both the final judgment of the trial court and the May 8, 1986 trial court order accepting appellant's guilty plea, all charges in the original Grand Jury indictment were reinstated and the cause was remanded to the trial court for a plea to the crimes charged. Id., at 89. In so doing, this Court granted appellant's motion proffered before the trial court requesting withdrawal of his plea. The instant case is distinguishable from Workman v. Commonwealth, Ky., 580 S.W.2d 206 (1979) and Commonwealth v. Reyes, Ky., 764 S.W.2d 62 (1989) where this Court ruled that a plea agreement is binding when the defendant has either entered a plea or taken action to his detriment in reliance of the offer, and the Commonwealth attempts to disregard its part of the bargain. Unlike Workman, supra , and Reyes, supra , the Commonwealth consistently presented the recommended sentence found within the 1986 plea agreement at the initial trial. Thus the rationale underlying Workman, supra , and Reyes, supra , is inapplicable. Similarly, no prosecutorial vindictiveness may be implied. Paralleling language found in Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971), this Court in Haight, supra , after granting withdrawal of appellant's guilty plea and reinstating all charges in the original indictment, remanded the case to the trial court for a plea to the crimes charged. Id. at 89. This language shows that in deciding Haight, supra , this Court contemplated that there could be a retrial on the original charges and that the Commonwealth might abandon the recommended sentence found within the plea agreement. Turner v. Tennessee, 940 F.2d 1000 (6th Cir.1991), an opinion cited by appellant that involves the issue of prosecutorial vindictiveness is distinguishable from the case at bar. In Turner, supra , the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered that the prosecution must overcome a presumption of vindictiveness when it offered a less favorable plea bargain than one initially rejected by the defendant, following vacation of defendant's conviction as the result of ineffectiveness of counsel relating to rejection of the first plea bargain offer. In the case at bar appellant's request to withdraw his guilty plea was honored in our previous opinion. Haight, supra . With reinstatement of the original indictment and appellant's entry of a plea of not guilty to these charges, appellant returned to the place he was in before the plea agreement was entered. The Commonwealth exhibits no prosecutorial vindictiveness for there is no appearance of retaliation when a defendant is placed in the same position as he was in before he accepted the plea bargain. United States v. Anderson, 514 F.2d 583, 588 (7th Cir.1975).