Opinion ID: 425952
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reconciling Blackledge and Bordenkircher

Text: 46 In United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368, 102 S.Ct. 2485, 73 L.Ed.2d 74 (1982), the Supreme Court finally brought coherence to the field by harmonizing the two competing interests of free exercise of legal rights and the need for prosecutorial discretion. Goodwin accomplished this feat not by holding that one interest was of greater virtue than the other, but by recognizing that each interest has an area of primacy. Goodwin articulated a pretrial/posttrial distinction and held that in the pretrial context, the need for prosecutorial discretion was foremost. 47 Goodwin involved a criminal defendant facing misdemeanor charges for assault. Goodwin refused to plead guilty to the misdemeanor and requested a trial by jury. The prosecutor then reindicted Goodwin for a felony charge for the same incident. The Court in Goodwin squarely held that in the pretrial context the prosecutor has the discretion to increase charges after a defendant's exercise of a right except for the purpose of punishing that exercise. The question we must now face is what constraints remain on a prosecutor's discretion to increase charges outside the pretrial context. Though Goodwin does not explicitly address that question, when it is viewed in the context of Blackledge and Bordenkircher it provides an implicit but ample answer.