Court Opinion

ID: 9465027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:33:42.133188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:56.185675
License: Public Domain

HARLINGTON WOOD, Jr.,
Circuit Judge, concurring.
North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 726, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2081, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), does not preclude all increased sentences on retrial, but requires that the justification must be found in “identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the time of the original sentence,” and, secondly, that the factual data “upon which the increased sentence is based must be made part of the record.”
The majority opinion, relying on Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 25-26, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 40 L.Ed.2d 628 (1974), appears to strictly require that the trial judge enumerate the necessary findings in the record. I grant that to be the better practice. However, I would find the Pearce requirement satisfied even if the trial judge did not fully specify the factual data item by item, provided that from the whole record of the sentencing hearing, the reasons for the imposition of a greater sentence by the trial judge did “affirmatively appear” in the record. 395 U.S. at 726, 89 S.Ct. 2072. If, for example, it could be clearly seen in the record that the trial judge had adopted by reference and incorporated into his sentence the factual recitations made by the prosecutor during the hearing, I would find the requirement adequately satisfied. In the present case, I believe that was the way it was. To the participants with knowledge of both trials, the basis for the judge’s increased sentence was understood.
As to the other requirement, if I were free to do so, I would apply the less restrictive view of Mr. Justice White, concurring in part in Pearce. He would “authorize an increased sentence on retrial based on any objective, identifiable, factual data not known to the trial judge at the time of the original sentence proceeding.” 395 U.S. at 751, 89 S.Ct. at 2089. At the first trial Tucker admitted he was present when the drug transactions occurred, but alibied that he was not actually involved. Tucker’s two co-defendants, who were also found guilty, received greater sentences than did Tucker. Tucker appealed, arguing that if the government had been required to call an unidentified informant who was present on that day, his theory of the case could be proved. On appeal, this court agreed with Tucker and granted him a new trial. The justification for the increase in Tucker’s sentence following retrial was clearly apparent. At the second trial, the additional witness informant and other evidence demonstrated that Tucker had not been just peripherally involved, but that he had been the instigator of the drug transaction. Tucker’s sentence, therefore, was increased by the trial judge and made equal to those previously imposed on his co-defendants under the earlier erroneous view of culpability. The new evidence indicated that Tucker deserved, perhaps, an even greater sentence than had been imposed on his co-defendants, certainly not a lesser one. There not being the slightest suggestion of vindictiveness in the record, at which the Pearce rule is aimed, I would, if I could, affirm the trial judge’s imposition of what appears to me to be a fair, and well deserved increased sentence.