Opinion ID: 425952
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Posttrial Presumption

Text: 48 Goodwin contributed a phrase to the judicial vocabulary at least as unfortunate as Blackledge 's prosecutorial vindictiveness: Goodwin described Pearce and Blackledge as creating a presumption of vindictiveness. Thus, another way of stating the question implicitly answered by Goodwin is: When does a presumption of vindictiveness arise? 49 A compelling answer to this question can be found by looking to the rationale Goodwin used to avoid a presumption in the pretrial context. The Court relied on Blackledge for the proposition that a presumption of vindictiveness should arise only in instances that pose a realistic likelihood of 'vindictiveness.'  Blackledge, 417 U.S. at 27, 94 S.Ct. at 2102. With that in mind, the Court explained Pearce and Blackledge as follows: 50 Both Pearce and Blackledge involved the defendant's exercise of a procedural right that caused a complete retrial after he had been once tried and convicted. The decisions in these cases reflect a recognition by the Court of the institutional bias inherent in the judicial system against the retrial of issues that have already been decided. The doctrines of stare decisis, res judicata, the law of the case, and double jeopardy all are based, at least in part, on that deep-seated bias. While none of these doctrines barred the retrials in Pearce and Blackledge, the same institutional pressure that supports them might also subconsciously motivate a vindictive prosecutorial or judicial response to a defendant's exercise of his right to obtain a retrial of a decided question. 51 Goodwin, 102 S.Ct. at 2490-91. In distinguishing the pretrial context, the Court noted all of the compelling reasons a prosecutor might have for increasing charges pretrial. The court then stated, Thus, a change in the charging decision made after an initial trial is completed is much more likely to be improperly motivated than is a pretrial decision. Id. at 2493. It is certainly true that once a prosecutor has finalized his charges enough that he or she is willing to go to trial on them, the needs for charging discretion tend to be much less, see, Michigan Note, supra, at 212-13, and the likelihood of vindictiveness much greater. 52 Finally, the Court distinguished the burden to the government from asserting the right at stake in Goodwin --the right to a jury trial instead of a bench trial--from that in Pearce and Blackledge: 53 [B]efore either a jury or a judge the State must present its full case against the accused and the defendant is entitled to offer a full defense. As compared to the complete trial de novo at issue in Blackledge, a jury trial--as opposed to a bench trial--does not require duplicative expenditures of prosecutorial resources before a final judgment may be obtained. Moreover, unlike the trial judge in Pearce, no party is asked to do over what it thought it had already done correctly. A prosecutor has no personal stake in a bench trial and thus no reason to engage in self-vindication upon a defendant's request for a jury trial. Perhaps most importantly, the institutional bias against the retrial of a decided question that supported the decisions in Pearce and Blackledge simply has no counterpart in this case. 54 102 S.Ct. at 2494 (footnotes omitted). The factors justifying a presumption in Blackledge and Pearce certainly exist in any posttrial assertion of a legal right. 55 Another answer to the question of when a presumption arises can be found by looking to the holding in Goodwin; no presumption of vindictiveness arises in the pretrial context. The obvious negative inference from this holding is that such a presumption does arise in the posttrial context. This conclusion is bolstered by looking at Goodwin relative to Pearce, Blackledge, and Bordenkircher. As the Court explained in Goodwin, it granted certiorari to clarify the scope of Pearce and Blackledge. 102 S.Ct. 2487. Pearce and Blackledge were cases involving a presumption of vindictiveness, and as Goodwin repeatedly noted, they were posttrial cases. Bordenkircher declined to apply a presumption and, as Goodwin noted, it was a pretrial case. Thus we have something considerably more powerful than a mere negative inference. Goodwin claimed to be partitioning the procedural universe between Pearce and Blackledge, the posttrial presumption cases, and Bordenkircher, the pretrial prosecutorial discretion case. Because Goodwin drew the partitioning line at trial, I can only conclude that Goodwin mandates a presumption of vindictiveness in the posttrial context. 56 In short, though Goodwin does not explicitly so hold, I believe it clearly stands for a dual proposition. Pretrial, no presumption of vindictiveness is justified. Posttrial, any upping the ante by the prosecutor after a defendant's exercise of a legal right gives rise to a presumption of vindictiveness. Goodwin harmonized Blackledge and Bordenkircher by drawing a bright line at trial. Pretrial, Bordenkircher reigns supreme; posttrial, Blackledge holds sway. This dual sovereignty should obviate the need to apply an unclear, unpredictable, unpalatable case-by-case analysis.