Opinion ID: 1172193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bullington and Its Progeny

Text: Bullington involved a defendant convicted in Missouri of capital murder. Under Missouri law, the defendant in Bullington was entitled to a separate presentence hearing on the question of penalty. State law guaranteed him the following procedural rights at that hearing: the same jury that found him guilty of murder would hear additional evidence; notice of the aggravating evidence must be given; the jury must consider 10 aggravating and 6 mitigating factors specified by law; the jury must weigh the various factors and identify in writing which factors it found proved beyond a reasonable doubt; the jury must find that the aggravating evidence warrants imposition of the death penalty beyond a reasonable doubt; and the jury's decision must be unanimous. ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at pp. 433-434 [101 S.Ct. at pp. 1855-1856].) After a presentence hearing, the jury eschewed the death penalty and imposed on the defendant a sentence of life with no parole for 50 years. The defendant in Bullington then moved for judgment of acquittal or for a new trial. When the trial court granted the new trial motion, the prosecution announced its decision that, during the retrial, it would again seek the death penalty. The defendant objected, citing the federal double jeopardy clause, and the high court agreed. The Supreme Court first noted that it has resisted attempts to extend [double jeopardy principles] to sentencing. The imposition of a particular sentence usually is not regarded as an `acquittal' of any more severe sentence that could have been imposed. The Court generally has concluded, therefore, that the Double Jeopardy Clause imposes no absolute prohibition against the imposition of a harsher sentence at retrial after a defendant has succeeded in having his original conviction set aside. ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 438 [101 S.Ct. at pp. 1857-1858].) For this proposition, the high court cited the cases on which the lead opinion relies, i.e., North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, 395 U.S. 711, DiFrancesco, supra, 449 U.S. 117, Chaffin v. Stynchcombe (1973) 412 U.S. 17 [93 S.Ct. 1977, 36 L.Ed.2d 714], Stroud v. United States (1919) 251 U.S. 15 [40 S.Ct. 50, 64 L.Ed. 103] (hereafter Stroud ). The Bullington court declined, however, to follow this line of reasoning. Because its explanation for diverging from the previous rule is critical to this case, I quote it extensively: The procedure that resulted in the imposition of the sentence of life imprisonment upon petitioner Bullington at his first trial, however, differs significantly from those employed in any of the Court's cases where the Double Jeopardy Clause has been held inapplicable to sentencing. The jury in this case was not given unbounded discretion to select an appropriate punishment from a wide range authorized by statute. Rather, a separate hearing was required and was held, and the jury was presented both a choice between two alternatives and standards to guide the making of that choice. Nor did the prosecution simply recommend what it felt to be an appropriate punishment. It undertook the burden of establishing certain facts beyond a reasonable doubt in its quest to obtain the harsher of the two alternative verdicts. The presentence hearing resembled and, indeed, in all relevant respects was like the immediately preceding trial on the issue of guilt or innocence. It was itself a trial on the issue of punishment so precisely defined by the Missouri statutes. In contrast, the sentencing procedures considered in the Court's previous cases did not have the hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence. In Pearce, Chaffin and Stroud, there was no separate sentencing proceeding at which the prosecution was required to prove  beyond a reasonable doubt or otherwise  additional facts in order to justify the particular sentence. In each of those cases, moreover, the sentencer's discretion was essentially unfettered. In Stroud, no standards had been enacted to guide the jury's discretion. In Pearce, the judge had a wide range of punishments from which to choose with no explicit standards imposed to guide him. And in Chaffin, the discretion given to the jury was extremely broad. That defendant, convicted in Georgia of robbery, could have been sentenced to death, to life imprisonment, or to a prison term of between 4 and 20 years. [Citation.] The statute contained no standards to guide the jury's exercise of its discretion. ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at pp. 438-440 [101 S.Ct. at pp. 1858-1859], italics added, fns. omitted.) In the usual sentencing proceeding, however, it is impossible to conclude that a sentence less than the statutory maximum `constitute[s] a decision to the effect that the government has failed to prove its case.' In the normal process of sentencing, `there are virtually no rules or tests or standards  and thus no issues to resolve....' M. Frankel, Criminal Sentences: Law Without Order 38 (1973). Thus, `[t]he discretion of the judge ... in [sentencing] matters is virtually free of substantive control or guidance. Where the judge has power to select a term of imprisonment within a range the exercise of that authority is left fairly at large.' Kadish, Legal Norm and Discretion in the Police and Sentencing Processes, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 904, 916 (1962). ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at pp. 443-444 [101 S.Ct. at pp. 1860-1861], fn. omitted.) By enacting a capital sentencing procedure that resembles a trial on the issue of guilt or innocence, however, Missouri explicitly requires the jury to determine whether the prosecution has `proved its case.' ... [W]e therefore refrain from extending the rationale of Pearce to the very different facts of the present case. Chief Justice Bardgett, in his dissent from the ruling of the Missouri Supreme Court majority, observed that the sentence of life imprisonment which petitioner received at his first trial meant that `the jury has already acquitted the defendant of whatever was necessary to impose the death sentence.' 594 S.W.2d, at 922. We agree. ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at pp. 444-445 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1861], italics added and omitted.) Having received `one fair opportunity to offer whatever proof it could assemble,' [citation], the State is not entitled to another. ( Id. at p. 446 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1862], quoting Burks, supra, 437 U.S. at p. 16 [98 S.Ct. at p. 2150].) As is clear, the high court found Bullington distinguishable from prior cases because of the nature of the sentencing proceeding involved. Unlike past cases, the separate sentencing proceeding in Bullington bore the hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence (451 U.S. at p. 439 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1858]), including the right to a jury, notice to the defendant of the facts to be proved, the submission of evidence and presentation of argument, a sentencing choice between two alternatives, circumscribed discretion with standards to guide such discretion, and a requirement of jury unanimity and of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The Supreme Court followed Bullington three years later in Arizona v. Rumsey (1984) 467 U.S. 203 [104 S.Ct. 2305, 81 L.Ed.2d 164] (hereafter Rumsey ). In Rumsey, the defendant was convicted of armed robbery and first degree murder. The trial judge, without a jury, found no aggravating circumstances present and thus determined the appropriate sentence under state law was life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 25 years. On appeal, the Arizona Supreme Court found the trial judge had been mistaken in concluding no aggravating circumstance existed and remanded for a new sentencing hearing. Following the new hearing, the trial judge sentenced the defendant to the death penalty. On appeal once again, the defendant in Rumsey claimed imposition of the death sentence on retrial violated the federal double jeopardy clause as interpreted in Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. 430. The state supreme court agreed and reduced the sentence to life imprisonment. The United States Supreme Court granted Arizona's petition for a writ of certiorari and affirmed. The high court explained that [t]he capital sentencing proceeding in Arizona shares the characteristics of the Missouri proceeding that make it resemble a trial for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The sentencer  the trial judge in Arizona  is required to choose between two options: death, and life imprisonment without possibility of parole for 25 years. The sentencer must make the decision guided by detailed statutory standards defining aggravating and mitigating circumstances; in particular, death may not be imposed unless at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstance is found, whereas death must be imposed if there is one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstance sufficiently substantial to call for leniency. The sentencer must make findings with respect to each of the statutory aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and the sentencing hearing involves the submission of evidence and the presentation of argument. The usual rules of evidence govern the admission of evidence of aggravating circumstances, and the State must prove the existence of aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt. [Citations.] As the Supreme Court of Arizona held, these characteristics make the Arizona capital sentencing proceeding indistinguishable ... from the capital sentencing proceeding in Missouri. [Citation.] ( Rumsey, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 209-210 [104 S.Ct. at p. 2309], italics added.) The court in Rumsey thus underscored Bullington 's core holding that the federal double jeopardy clause will apply to sentencing proceedings when such proceedings bear the hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 439 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1858]). Stated differently, we must ask whether the sentencing proceeding involves characteristics that make it resemble a trial for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. ( Rumsey, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 209-210 [104 S.Ct. at p. 2309].) Despite the high court's analysis in both Bullington and Rumsey, the majority declines to follow the teaching of those cases. As I explain, the majority's approach is analytically insupportable.