Court Opinion

ID: 9454103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:36:16.215538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:58.334232
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
Some background of the relevant facts is usually desirable in passing on the legal issues. To supplement this deficiency in the majority opinion, a more complete factual statement is required.

The Trial before Judge Dawson

After the defendant Coke had been found guilty of narcotics violations by the jury, Judge Dawson said: “For sentence, do you want the sentence now or later ? ” To which counsel replied: “The defendant says he has no reason if the Court decides it should be now.” Thus, Judge Dawson did not have a pre-sentence probation report.
Thereupon, the Government disclosed a Cuban criminal record involving narcotics and “about five theft charges in Cuba.” Defendant’s counsel urged leniency because Coke, although never married, had “an obligation as to a three-year-old child.”
Judge Dawson, believing that “The narcotic traffic in New York is a very bad situation,” which “must be stamped out,” and which “Congress a few years ago decided * * * was so serious that they took it [sic] away from the judges the power to suspend sentence or give reduced sentences,” sentenced Coke to six years in jail.

The Trial before Judge Cooper

The conviction before Judge Dawson was reversed solely because of appellate belief that disparaging remarks and prejudicial conduct of the trial judge had deprived Coke of a fair trial. United States v. Coke, 339 F.2d 183, 185 (2 Cir.). On retrial, the jury again convicted. Before imposing sentence, Judge Cooper had “read and reread the pre-sentence investigation” and had “given it a great deal of thought.” On sentence, addressing Coke, he found “in it [the pre-sen-tence report] hardly anything, Coke, on the creditable side of the ledger of your life. You have been shiftless, indifferent to responsibilities, you have fathered children by three different women. Most of those children, if not all of them, have been on welfare for years. * * * I am overwhelmingly convinced that you have been a large supplier of cocaine in the New York City area. * * * ” In imposing sentence, Judge Cooper said: “I find myself hard put to come to an agreement that the sentence that Judge Dawson meted out was or would be today the appropriate sentence * * Consecutive terms of five years were ordered on counts 1 and 2, and a five-year concurrent term as to count 3.
This court affirmed the conviction. 364 F.2d 484. No claim was made in that appeal that the ten-year sentence infringed Coke’s rights, constitutional or otherwise. Even on the motion to reduce *850sentence, Coke did not assert the present claim, which is now raised by a section 2255 petition to correct or reduce the sentence.
The basis and rationale for the ten-year sentence are clearly disclosed in the opinion denying the reduction. Coke v. United States, 280 F.Supp. 97 (D.C. 1968.)
1.' As to penalizing the petitioner for exercising his right to appeal, Judge Cooper said: “The thought itself is repugnant. Such is not the quality of justice prevailing here.”
^ , ,. , _ , _ ’ ro a10.n. rePor ' u se o°per said after studying it: Its revelations, the nature of the offense committed, the events occurring at the third trial in-eluding petitioners deportment there, the necessity for a deterrent, and an estimate of his dangerousness to the commumty at large were considered The pre-sentence report after the third trial revealed more including three non-supported children by three different para-v , r ,. ■, . . mours and a peddler [narcotics] of high ^ L.J „ J 6 danger to the community.
Judge Cooper believed that “sentenc- . . ° , ,, j. ing judges should not hesitate to at- „. . • , , , ,, , • firmatively place on the record the basis „ tt j-j j i a„a of their action. He did so and concluded that “Where the new or additional information relates to a significant aspect of defendant’s life habits and conduct, affecting his potential danger to society, his capacity to live within its legal norms, a change in form (e. g., from probation to imprisonment) or increase of sentence (e. g., from six to ten years) is warranted.”

The Van Alstyne Law

The current interest in the thesis that on a re-trial of the same case no sentence shall be imposed which is of greater duration than the original sentence apparently stems from a law review article in March 1965 by Professor Van Alstyne entitled, “In Gideon’s Wake: Harsher Penalties and the ‘Successful’ Criminal Appellant,” 74 Yale L.J. 606. Professor Van Alstyne concedes that “Harsher sentences following re-conviction of suecessful appellants are permissible throughout the federal courts 14 and in the vast majority of the States.15” Confronted with existing law, he sets out to change it by having “the burden of this article” establish that harsher sentences are unconstitutional and asserts that three constitutional provisions or principles centering around double jeopardy and equal protection support this conclusion- Underlying the entire argument 18 the assumption that fear of an “creased sentence is a deterrent to convlc1;ed df endants from pressing an appeal. The author recognizes that some authoritative support may be required tQ make effeetive hig new law because he “Hopefully the States will remedy ^ situation of their Qwn accord b appropriate legislative or judicial action 45„_ (H 624) thug heedi the modern trend Qf ^ g te but , rg to both divigiong of Gov. ernment under ^ court.interpreted Constituthn with the judiciary ever „ , , ready and willing to assume (possibly . . even usurp) primary legislative functions
With the background and authority of . , . . , ., this treatise, the next step was to take it . , ,. , „ , mto the forum for a practical test run. ^
Opportunity was quickly presented in the person of Eddie Patton who, in North Carolina, had pleaded nolo con-tendere to armed robbery and had received a twenty-year sentence. Gideon had afforded Patton a new trial. On the retrial, an increased sentence for all practical purposes was imposed, namely, twenty years without allowance of the four-years-plus already served. A habeas corpus proceeding was brought in the federal court, .Patton being represented by Professor Van Alstyne. The court believed that “the heart of the question” was to be found in the suspicion that (1) the second judge was penalizing the defendant for his temerity in seeking to vindicate his rights by appealing, and (2) “would he [the judge] likely be candid enough to so state in the record.” Patton v. North Carolina, 256 F.Supp. 225, 234 (D.C.). Because of *851the difficulties “of proving improper trial judge motivation,” the court, in effect, absent justifying proof presented by the State showing facts which rationally supported the imposition of a heavier sentence such as misleading the first trial judge as to the defendant’s prior criminal record or possibly intervening facts, concluded that there was not a “scintilla of evidence in the record to rationally support the imposition of a harsher penalty * * Id. p. 236. On appeal, Professor Van Alstyne as court-assigned counsel represented Patton. Judge (now Chief Judge) Sobeloff, adopting the Van Alstyne thesis, concluded that since it is “impossible, and most distasteful, for federal courts to pry into the sentencing judge’s motivation to ascertain whether vindictiveness played a part” and because “improper motivation is characteristically a force of low visibility,” “In order to prevent abuses, the fixed policy must necessarily be that the new sentence shall not exceed the old.” Id. p. 641. At this point, I must note by disagreement, as I believe my majority colleagues disagree, with the statement in Patton of avoiding a danger that “the added punishment was in reaction to the defendant’s temerity in attacking the original conviction.” Id. p. 641. I will not impute any such motivation to Judge Cooper (or to any other trial judge in this Circuit) who has meticulously spread on the record sound factual reasons for his action.)
Additional support for the Van Al-styne thesis is to be found in the tentative drafts of the Advisory Committee on Sentencing and Review (American Bar Association Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice). This Committee serves within the framework of the Special Committee of which Chief Judge Lumbard is the Chairman and which Committee “is responsible for the overall supervision and coordination of the Project.” “The Special Committee will eventually recommend the standards to those Sections, and to the Board of Governors and the House of Delegates for their consideration and endorsement.” (Preface, Tentative Draft, April 1967). Chief Judge Sobeloff, the writer of the Patton opinion, is the Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Sentencing and Review. 8,000 copies of the report of his committee were to be distributed and “Through this procedure [and after “wide and careful consideration”], it is hoped to achieve the formulation of standards which can be recommended for application throughout the United States.” It is not surprising in view of this background to find Professor Van Alstyne’s views featured as a basis for the Committee’s proposal that “On a remand for the purpose of resentencing an offender, no sentencing court should be empowered to impose a sentence which results in an increase over the sentence originally imposed.” (3.4(b), Tentative Draft).
A thorough review of the laws of many of the States on the subject is to be found in the appendix to the Draft. Some States permit an increase, some do not. As might have been expected, the views of the Committee were not unanimous. Equally to be expected may be lack of unanimity in the Board of Governors, the House of Delegates, the Judicial Conference, the Congress, or the Supreme Court.
Pragmatically, it will make little difference as to what law is enacted on the subject; but in my opinion it makes a great deal of difference as to how it is enacted. Particularly is it important in this situation because in this field, unlike so many others, it should be possible to draft a law for definite application on a national basis, that is, if acceptable to the States — or possibly even if not.
Before dealing with the future, a glance at the present may be helpful. Our system now calls for sentencing by a judge. Under this procedure this duty is his “prerogative” and the sentence is on his “conscience.” Some courts have sentencing panels in which the sentence to be imposed is discussed. Some judges heed, and are influenced by, the discussion; others do as they *852please. This system promotes gross inequalities, creates injustices and fosters judge-shopping. In every district any trial lawyer knows the maneuvers necessary to be taken to get the “right” judge. Of necessity judges possess their own individual characteristics and predilections. They quickly reveal to the Bar the types of crime on which they are “hard” and those on which they are “soft.” Disparities of sentence must continue to exist as long as judges continue to be human beings.
The current decisions1 indicate the problems for the future draftsmen. Should sentence be imposed only after a probation report? Should the sentencing judge have to state on the record his reasons for the particular sentence? Should his reasons be subject to collateral attack and appellate review? Where there is a re-trial, should the second sentencing judge be deprived of his “prerogative” and his “conscience” ? Can he consider intervening events such as here? Should he state on the record, again for collateral attack and review, those reasons which impel him to increase the sentence? Should appellate courts through appellate review be the sentencing body? (An interesting situation might be revealed in the imposition of a 20-year sentence by a vote of 5 to 4, 5 voting for 20 years, 4 for 5 years — a highly supposititious case. Would not the fairer sentence result from a division by 9 of the total years or a sentence of 13 years and 4 months?)
Doubtless many other questions can be conjured up but one certainty exists — a law can be enacted which will give to all judges some idea as to the procedure to be followed by them on re-trial sentencing. Equally certain will be the confusion and comparative injustice which will result from developing the law by the decisional process in a piecemeal manner.

The Majority Opinion

The majority opinion effectively and convincingly demonstrates that “No policy of the double jeopardy clause is offended when, as a consequence of a retrial of the same offense resulting from proceedings taken by the accused to correct trial error, a higher punishment is imposed.”
Accurate, too, is the opinion’s statement that “The idea that some other constitutional principle forbids a heavier sentence on retrial, even if double jeopardy does not, is of exceedingly recent origin.” Indeed it is.
Again, the opinion correctly concludes that there are no constitutional conditions which prevent the imposition upon subsequent conviction of “whatever sentence is justified in the light of all the facts then appearing” and that “To the extent that a new trial, * * * has shed new light on the adequacy of his previous sentence, there is sufficient basis for a classification allowing an appropriate sentence to be imposed * * Nor does the “equal protection” clause bar such a sentence.
However, after presenting sound arguments for its conclusion that “the Constitution does not mandate a universal prohibition of higher sentences after a retrial” and after conceding that “sentencing is normally within the discretion of the trial judge,” the majority suddenly change their role and take unto themselves powers which, in my opinion, should be exercised either by the Congress, the Judicial Conference, the American Bar Association upon the recommendations of its appropriate committees now considering the problem, or the Supreme Court. Instead they decree that “A federal appellate court has not only the right but, in our view, the duty to lay down standards on this matter for *853application in federal trials.” They recognize that “sentencing is normally within the discretion of the trial judge” and believe (as do I) that “a uniform practice should be established”; but then they, in effect, enact a law that reads that on re-trial no higher sentence may be imposed except that in “[two] circumstances [apparently, intervening conduct and development of additional facts on re-trial] a higher sentence may lawfully be imposed, provided that the judge specifies the reasons on the record.”
I am not unmindful of recent decisions, May v. Peyton, 398 F.2d 476 (4th Cir., June 26, 1968); State v. Holmes, 161 N.W.2d 650, Minnesota Supreme Court, September 6, 1968; and of the Supreme Court’s granting of certiorari in North Carolina v. Pearce, 393 U.S. 922, 89 S.Ct. 258, 21 L.Ed.2d 258, October 29, 1968, and in Simpson v. Rice, 393 U.S. 932, 89 S.Ct. 292, 21 L.Ed.2d 268, November 13, 1968, all of which involve the resentencing problem. However, these decisions for the present are mere stepping stones. In alignment on the starting line of this race to enact a (or the) law on the subject are the highest court of a State, a federal Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, the American Bar’s Special Committee and, unless intentionally scratched, the Congress and the State legislative bodies. It is far easier to pick the losers than the winners in this race. My only concern at this time is with my colleagues’ feeling of compunction that they should “lay down standards * * * for application in federal trials.” They would, in effect, undertake to do in one decision that to which many of the best legal minds in the country have been devoting their attention for years. Orderly procedure requires in the immediate future the steps outlined in the Committee’s Preface. In this hypothetical race, I would not have the courts try to cut in ahead of the Committee and put it out of the race.
I would also pay some respect to State legislative bodies and to State courts. After all, the Constitution, now used so frequently to justify the assertion of federal supremacy, came into being as a result of the original Constitutional Convention only after spirited debates and compromise on the limitation of federal powers and the reservation of States’ rights. The peoples of our fifty States are not aborigines, resident in not-yet-emerged areas. They should be entitled to pass laws to express their own public policies. If every man in every State is entitled to his own vote, this vote should not be nullified by some federal judge who, or by a court which, may happen to disagree with the State’s public policy. Thus, each State should have the right to enact its own criminal code and to fix the penalties for infractions of its laws. There may be substantial variations in the crimes proscribed and in the penalties attaching thereto. These variations, however, can only be avoided by a uniform criminal code, voluntarily (as in the case of the Uniform Commercial Code) adopted by the States, or foisted and forced upon them by the federal courts under the guise of “equal protection.”
The democratic process depends not only upon freedom of expression by the people but, more importantly, upon respect for the actions taken by them. When, as and if a uniform sentencing code is presented to them, they should have the right to accept or reject it without fear that rejection would be overridden rough shod by the federal courts.
In view of the present status of the Committee drafts and the prospects for possible adoption after full and free discussion, I would refrain from doing by decision that which they seek to do by code. I believe that restraint is the essence of democracy and that exercise of restraint at this juncture would be advisable. Nor is there any good reason for allowing the first sentencing judge to follow his “conscience” and for depriving the second sentencing judge of following his “conscience.” Both judges have taken the same constitutional oath; each fills his respective niche in our judicial system. Because of action probably to be taken in the compara*854tively near future by the winner of this hypothetical race, my views here expressed will doubtless be academic but for the present I find Judge Cooper’s decision consistent with the better law as it relates to re-sentencing. In fact, Judge Cooper was entitled to rely on our decisions in the much-appealed Ellen-bogen case (United States v. Ellenbogen, 341 F.2d 893, 2 Cir., 1965; Id. 365 F.2d 982 (1966); Id. 390 F.2d 537 (1968) footnote 13 at p. 543). Although this court disposed of the latest appeal on jurisdictional grounds and expressed no opinion as to the merits of other grounds raised, the Court did say by way of footnote with respect to the suggested illegality of a greater sentence on retrial :
“Ellenbogen argues that his sentence of one year and one day is illegal because it is greater than the sentence of 60 days imposed after his first trial and conviction. He raised this same argument on his second appeal to this court in 1966 and we disposed of it then, along with numerous other points he had raised, in the final sentence of the opinion. United States v. Ellenbogen, 365 F.2d 982, 989 (2 Cir. 1966).”
Lastly, any change in the law should operate prospectively and not retroactively. If the Committee’s recommendations (whatever they may be after the “wide and careful consideration” contemplated) are codified by the Congress or Judicial Conference or made into law by the Supreme Court, it would not be presumptuous to predict that they would apply only to situations which may arise after their enactment.
However, assuming that the majority is creating new law for this circuit, I find that Judge Cooper’s decision complies with it in every particular. The “two circumstances” both are present, intervening conduct and additional facts upon re-trial. The “provided that” condition has also been met as the Judge “specifie[d] the [his] reasons on the record.” In my opinion, therefore, the conclusion is inevitable that his sentence should be upheld and the judgment should be affirmed.

. Marano v. United States, 374 F.2d 583 (1st Cir. 1967); Patton v. North Carolina, 256 F.Supp. 225 (W.D.N.C.1966), aff’d, 381 F.2d 636 (4th Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 390 U.S. 905, 88 S.Ct. 818, 19 L.Ed.2d 871 (1968); United States v. White, 382 F.2d 445 (7th Cir. 1967); United States ex rel. Starner v. Russell, 378 F.2d 808 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 889, 88 S.Ct. 166, 19 L.Ed.2d 189 (1967).