Court Opinion

ID: 9668053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:01:10.536056+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:42.709839
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING OR TRANSFER
PER CURIAM.
This court has directed that upon remand, the trial court may receive additional evi-*399denee upon the issue of whether or not the defendant is a persistent offender. This procedure has been consistently approved by the Supreme Court of this state. State v. Harris, 547 S.W.2d 473 (Mo.banc 1977); State v. Hawkins, 418 S.W.2d 921 (Mo.banc 1967); State v. Tettamble, 450 S.W.2d 191 (Mo.1970); State v. Garrett, 416 S.W.2d 116 (Mo.1967); State v. Deutschmann, 392 S.W.2d 279 (Mo.1965). In permitting a second submission of second offender status to a jury under procedure then in force, that court has declared: “The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment is written in terms of potential or risk of trial and conviction, not punishment.” State v. Johnson, 485 S.W.2d 106, 112 (Mo.1972). However, in his motion for rehearing or transfer, the defendant contends the procedure directed by this court is condemned by principles enunciated in Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 101 S.Ct. 1852, 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981).
Bullington involved the bifurcated trial procedure applicable to the trial on a charge of capital murder when the death penalty has not been waived. In that case, it was held that upon a retrial the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment barred the state from seeking the death penalty when, upon the first trial, the verdict of the jury has been for life imprisonment without parole for 50 years.
This court is of the opinion the procedure directed upon remand is not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. That clause has been historically applied to the issue of guilt and not sentence. United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. 117, 101 S.Ct. 426, 66 L.Ed.2d 328 (1980). “[A]t least since 1919, when Stroud v. United States, 251 U.S. 15, 40 S.Ct. 50, 64 L.Ed. 103 [(1919)] was decided, it has been settled that a corollary of the power to retry a defendant is the power, upon the defendant’s reconviction, to impose whatever sentence may be legally authorized, whether or not it is greater than the sentence imposed after the first conviction.” North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 720, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2078, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969). Only the due process clause has been held to impose a limitation upon the sentence which may be fixed by a judge upon retrial. North Carolina v. Pearce, supra. Under the federal practice, the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar a federal trial court from increasing an initially imposed sentence any time before the defendant starts to serve that sentence. United States v. DiFrancesco, supra. Nor, does that clause bar a federal circuit court of appeals from increasing a sentence initially imposed upon a “dangerous special offender” by the district court. United States v. DiFrancesco, supra. If the Double Jeopardy Clause does not in those instances bar an enhanced sentence imposed without a hearing, it is difficult to rationalize a bar to an enhanced sentence based upon a second hearing, dealing not with guilt but only the formal matter of a prior conviction.
To do so, so long as U.S. v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 41 L.Ed. 300 (1896) and North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, state the law, it is necessary to say the statute defining burglary in the first degree defines two crimes: one committed by a persistent offender; the other committed by any other defendant. It would then follow that an acquittal, or the presentation of insufficient evidence to establish the first offense, would bar a second attempt to convict a defendant of that offense. The undesirable implications from such a rationale are endless.
Bullington is based upon factors clearly distinguishable from those applicable to a determination of persistent offender status by a judge. Some of those distinguishing factors are emphasized in that opinion. Obviously, in Bullington the second of the two jury hearings involved a determination concerning the imposition of the death penalty, a procedure often accorded special treatment. That determination was to be made by a jury, not a judge. The jury was given only two choices, not the flexible range of punishment afforded a judge under the persistent offender procedure. The second jury hearing could, and most likely would, involve a wide range of evidence. That *400evidence would inexorably be intertwined with evidence of guilt or innocence. The second stage hearing in capital cases is in many respects comparable to a jury trial on guilt or innocence. By reason of the nature of the evidence to be considered and the limited choice given the jury, a verdict of life imprisonment can more readily be denominated an acquittal of the death penalty. Perhaps the importance of those distinguishing factors has been summarized in that opinion: “The ‘embarrassment, expense and ordeal’ and the ‘anxiety and insecurity’ faced by a defendant at the penalty phase of a Missouri capital murder trial surely are at least equivalent to that faced by any defendant at the guilt phase of a criminal trial.” Bullington, 101 S.Ct. at 1861. In short, the death penalty second stage trial in a capital murder case bears no similarity to a determination of persistent offender status by a judge upon the basis of largely formal evidence.
Nevertheless, the reasoning in Bullard v. Estelle, 665 F.2d 1347 (5th Cir.1982), vacated -U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 776, 74 L.Ed.2d 987 (1983), is often cited to the contrary. That case involved the enhancement of punishment upon a determination of two prior convictions by a jury in a bifurcated criminal trial in Texas. The punishment involved was an automatic enhancement from a limited term of years to life imprisonment. Relying primarily upon Bullington, the court stated: “[T]he double jeopardy clause bars a second enhancement proceeding when the evidence at the first enhancement proceeding was insufficient to establish that the defendant committed one or more of the prior offenses necessary for enhancement, .... ” Bullard, at 1349. Other authorities are cited in State v. Cullen, 646 S.W.2d 850 (Mo.App.1982).
A conclusion contrary to Bullard was reached in Linam v. Griffin, 685 F.2d 369 (10th Cir.1982). That conclusion is supported by the reasoning in United States v. Busic, 639 F.2d 940 (3rd Cir.1981). Also compare Dixon v. State, 437 N.E.2d 1318 (Ind.1982). In State v. Cullen, supra, the failure of proof of persistent offender status was held to be due to a trial error, defective receipt of evidence, and not the insufficiency of the evidence. In those circumstances, the court held the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar a second hearing upon the persistent offender issue.
A determination by the judge of whether or not the defendant is a persistent offender is a part of the sentencing procedure. The rehearing on that issue ordered in the principal opinion “should be governed by DiFrancesco rather than Bullington.” Li-nam, at 376. In no sense of the word has the defendant been acquitted of an offense. “This is not the kind of adjudication that is referred to in the fifth amendment.” Li-nam, at 376. Also see United States v. Busic, supra. In all events, this court is constrained to follow the procedure on this issue clearly mandated by the decisions of the Supreme Court of Missouri first cited above. The other arguments in the defendant’s motion have been considered and found to provide no basis for rehearing or transfer. The motion is overruled.
All concur.