Court Opinion

ID: 9543948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:50:46.305228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:31.774908
License: Public Domain

Ryan, J.
(dissenting). The majority of the Court has concluded that the rule of North Carolina v Pearce, 395 US 711; 89 S Ct 2072; 23 L Ed 2d 656 (1969), applies to nullify the greater sentence imposed on the defendant by a judge to whom his case was transferred for resentencing following a successful effort to have improper material excised from the presentence report.
I respectfully disagree. I am convinced that re-sentencing of a defendant by a judge who is not informed of an earlier sentence is not a situation in which "the possibility of vindictiveness” inheres.
Pearce requires that, where it applies, a judge imposing a more severe sentence upon a defendant must state facts not made known to the first sentencing judge.
In Chaffin v Stynchcombe, 412 US 17; 93 S Ct 1977; 36 L Ed 2d 714 (1973), however, the Court *541made it clear that "Pearce was premised on the hazard of vindictiveness”, 412 US 25, and that unless the likelihood a defendant will be penalized for exercising rights to post-conviction processes is perceived to exist, Pearce does not apply. The Court in Pearce "intimated no doubt about the constitutional validity of higher sentences in the absence of vindictiveness despite whatever incidental deterrent effect they might have on the right to appeal”. Chaffin v Stynchcombe, 412 US 29.
The majority opinion in Chaffin identified potential sources of vindictiveness in retrial and resentencing situations and found no real threat of vindictiveness where the jury is not informed of the prior sentence and the second sentence is not otherwise shown to be a product of vindictiveness.
"The first prerequisite for the imposition of a retaliatory penalty is knowledge of the prior sentence.” Chaffin, 412 US 26. The second sentencing judge in this case had no knowledge of the original sentence or of the prior history of the case. See the majority opinion (fn 1).
Nor was the second sentence meted out by the same judge and thus there was no motive for self-vindication.
At most, the second sentencing judge might have some tendency to be sensitive to certain institutional interests that could result in a propensity to sentence more harshly in order to discourage meritless appeals or resentencing procedures. The possibility of such institutional sensitivity alone was not seen to create an inherent likelihood of vindictiveness in a two-tier system of trial courts in Colten v Kentucky, 407 US 104; 92 S Ct 1953; 32 L Ed 2d 584 (1972). I am not convinced that it does so here.
In sum, I do not believe that the circumstances *542presented in the case at bar present any likelihood of vindictiveness toward particular defendants. A defendant has no reason to fear that a judge who is unaware of a prior sentence will increase it out of vindictiveness. Moreover, there is no indication that the circuit judge was motivated by actual vindictiveness in imposing the second sentence. The sentence is certainly within a reasonable exercise of discretion in light of the crime and the defendant’s record and would unquestionably stand had the questionable matter in the presentence report been timely raised before any sentence was imposed.
I would affirm the Court of Appeals.
Williams, J., concurred with Ryan, J.