Opinion ID: 4022040
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Acquittal Argument

Text: The Supreme Court has explained that the touchstone for double-jeopardy protection in capital-sentencing proceedings is whether there has been an 'acquittal.' Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, 537 U.S. 101, 109 (2003). In the context of aggravating circumstances at sentencing, the Court reject[s] the . . . premise . . . that a capital sentencer's failure to find a particular aggravating circumstance alleged by the prosecution always constitutes an 'acquittal' of that circumstance for double jeopardy purposes. Poland v. Arizona, 476 U.S. 147, 155 (1986). Instead, an acquittal in the capital sentencing context turns on whether the sentencer or reviewing court has 'decided that the prosecution has not proved its case' that the death penalty is appropriate. Id. (quoting Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 443 (1981)); see also Bobby v. Bies, 556 U.S. 825, 833–34 (2009). If the decision being examined does not meet the standard of an acquittal, then the clean slate rule applies, Bullington, 451 U.S. at 443, and the defendant constitutionally may be subjected - 14 - to whatever punishment is lawful, subject only to the limitation that he receive credit for time served, id. at 442. The earlier penalty-phase jury's decision in Sampson's case is not an acquittal. Quite the opposite -- the jury found the death penalty justified, despite also finding that the government had not proven two non-statutory aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt to all members of the jury. The Supreme Court has been clear that the concern with protecting the finality of acquittals is not implicated when . . . a defendant is sentenced to death, i.e., 'convicted.' There is no cause to shield such a defendant from further litigation; further litigation is the only hope he has. Poland, 476 U.S. at 156. In Bobby v. Bies, the Court likewise held that there was no acquittal for double-jeopardy purposes where the original jury imposed the death sentence despite the presence of the mitigating factor of mental retardation, and a new hearing on the defendant's mental capacity was held in light of Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). 556 U.S. at 833–34. And in Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, the Court held that a deadlocked sentencing-jury verdict automatically resulting in a life sentence was not an acquittal of the death penalty for double-jeopardy purposes. 537 U.S. at 109–110. The Court has been consistent in a variety of different factual circumstances. See also Bullington, 451 U.S. at 444–45 (verdict of life imprisonment in sentencing proceeding that - 15 - explicitly requires the jury to determine whether the prosecution has 'proved its case' for death is an acquittal of the death penalty for double-jeopardy purposes). Double jeopardy clearly does not apply here. See Evans v. Michigan, 133 S. Ct. 1069, 1075 (2013) (contrasting substantive rulings that trigger double jeopardy, including rulings that go to insufficiency of evidence, or guilt and innocence, with procedural rulings that 'are unrelated to factual guilt or innocence,' such as 'a legal judgment that a defendant, although criminally culpable, may not be punished' because of some problem like an error with the indictment, and which do not trigger double jeopardy (quoting United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 98 & n.11 (1978))). Our vacation of Sampson's original death-penalty sentence on Sixth Amendment grounds based on juror misconduct does not change this analysis. That decision rested on the basis that a juror had improperly withheld material information to get on the jury, and had nothing to do with either the sufficiency of the evidence or [Sampson's] guilt or innocence. United States v. Szpyt, 785 F.3d 31, 37–38 (1st Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 800 (2016). Sampson was not acquitted, and the Double Jeopardy Clause is not triggered. Sampson tries to marshal quotes from case law at the periphery of double-jeopardy jurisprudence in an effort to construe the original penalty-phase jury's determinations on the - 16 - non-statutory aggravating factors as an acquittal. In particular, he points to Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and cases interpreting it, to suggest an expanding of the concept of 'acquittal,' and to argue that non-statutory as well as statutory aggravating factors are constitutionally significant under the FDPA. Sampson cites various non-binding decisions from other courts, see, e.g., State v. Sawatzky, 125 P.3d 722, 726 (Or. 2005) (en banc), as well as non-precedential dicta from a Supreme Court plurality opinion, Sattazahn, 537 U.S. at 110–12 (plurality opinion), that have reasoned from Apprendi to hold or suggest that double-jeopardy protections apply to jury determinations on sentencing enhancements even if there was never an acquittal on the death penalty. And he provides various cases discussing the relationship between the FDPA and Apprendi, as well as the FDPA and the Confrontation Clause, in an attempt to demonstrate the evolving constitutional significance of FDPA non-statutory aggravating factors. But Apprendi is not a double-jeopardy case; its holding concerns what must be submitted to, and found to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt by, a jury in the first instance. Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 476. Here the jury in the first instance did properly find beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty should be imposed. - 17 - Our question is not what Apprendi requires of the FDPA, nor whether non-statutory aggravating factors are constitutionally significant, but rather whether relitigating two non-statutory aggravating factors found not proven by an earlier penalty-phase jury is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. The Supreme Court's cases squarely addressing the question of what is an acquittal for double-jeopardy purposes control the question, and they compel rejection of Sampson's argument.8 Because neither the original penalty-phase jury's verdict nor the vacatur of Sampson's sentence constitutes an acquittal, doublejeopardy principles do not prevent the government from alleging again the two non-statutory aggravating factors.