Court Opinion

ID: 9655992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:29:47.756284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:26.105658
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). The point of applying the Pearce-Denny due process doctrine in this case is to assure the public and the defendant that the defendant is subjected to punishment for the crime the state has proved, not for the “offense” of withdrawing a guilty plea. The withdrawal of the plea cannot at one and the same time be granted by the court and penalized by the court.
To ensure that the defendant is punished only for the crime committed rather than the defendant’s choice to exercise his or her legal rights, the United States Supreme Court has looked skeptically at harsher sentences imposed after the defendant has exercised those rights. The United States Supreme Court is not concerned with looking for a particular subjective intent on the part of a particular judge when the punishment is increased at the second sentencing; the Court has recognized that such motive would be extremely difficult to prove. The Supreme Court has instead adopted a prophylactic rule in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 725, note 20 (1969), to guard against the possibility that a particular judge might act on “vindictive” reasons in resentencing a defendant. The Pearce rule protects against the institutional hazard that a judge subconsciously might be motivated to respond in a retaliatory manner to a defendant’s fruitless exercise of his right to obtain a retrial of a decided question. North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, 395 U.S. at 725; Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104, 113, 114 (1972); Chaffin v. Stynchcombe, 412 U.S. 17, 18 (1973).
To guard against this hazard which is inherent in the resentencing process, the Court requires the trial court to *709state, on the record, its reasons for imposing a harsher sentence. These reasons must meet several criteria: (1) they must be based on objective information; (2) they must concern identifiable conduct; (3) that conduct must be on the part of the defendant; (4) that conduct must occur after the time of the original sentencing proceeding. (Like the majority, I recognize that this fourth factor is ambiguous in light of other language in the Pearce opinion.)
The United States Supreme Court has set forth a difficult test which the trial court must pass on the record it creates. I write separately because I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the three reasons for increasing this defendant’s sentence which the majority reads into the circuit court’s statements at sentencing satisfy the Pearce-Denny criteria. I am persuaded that the factors “leniency” and “amplified knowledge of the defendant’s criminal activity” as used in the majority opinion do not concern objective information, stated in the record, of defendant’s identifiable conduct. These factors do not involve the defendant’s acts, and these factors, as defined in the majority opinion, will be present in any case in which a defendant chooses to exercise his or her right to withdraw a guilty plea and go to trial.
The majority reads “leniency” into the record based on its understanding of the inherent nature of plea bargaining, but the record reveals that at the first sentencing the circuit court did not mention “leniency,” and “leniency” does not appear to have been a concern at that hearing. The only possible “leniency” that the record reveals is the circuit court’s reservations about the de-1 fendant’s guilt because the circuit court believed the defendant may have had a defense. The two trials after the defendant’s withdrawal of the plea revealed to the circuit court what the defendant had already told him by pleading guilty: that the defendant was, in fact, guilty. On resentencing it is clear that the circuit court believed *710it had erroneously given the defendant the benefit of a doubt as to guilt in the original sentencing and at the resentencing the circuit court sought to take away that benefit.
Neither the “leniency” nor the “amplified knowledge of the defendant’s criminal activity” involves any facts not previously known by the judge. The trials proved, as had the hearing on the guilty plea, that the defendant had committed the crime. The facts of the crime were set forth in the complaint and in the transcript of the preliminary hearing at which the victim had testified; the transcript was available to the circuit court at the first sentencing. The only “fact” that changed between the first and the second sentencing was the circuit court’s perception of those facts. At the second sentencing, the circuit court attempted to rectify its previous mistake. However, as both parties agreed on oral argument, to allow the circuit court to increase a sentence on resen-tencing because it had had a mistaken perception of the offense or offender at the first sentencing violates due process under Pearce and Denny because a change of mind by the court is not objective “new” information of the defendant’s identifiable conduct.
The court of appeals carefully compares in its opinion the facts the circuit court knew and considered on sentencing and resentencing and carefully explains that the resentencing was based on the circuit court’s changed perception of the offender and offense. I am persuaded by the court of appeals’ analysis that the record does not reveal that the circuit court affirmatively stated reasons for imposing a harsher second sentence on the sexual assault conviction based on its considering objective “new” information of the defendant’s identifiable conduct. Instead of paraphrasing the opinion of the court of appeals, I set forth the relevant parts as follows:
“We conclude that the increased sentence for sexual assault deprived defendant due process because it was not *711based on objective facts unknown to the trial court at the time of the first sentence. . . .
“As a factual basis for the plea bargain, the prosecutor told the court that about 3:00 a.m., September 11, 1978, the victim was asleep in her apartment when she was awakened by the defendant choking her. He was lying on her and was nude. Defendant told her that he wanted to have sex with her and pushed a fork against her neck. He threatened to hit her with his fist but put down the fork and grabbed a picture which he put against her neck. He told her he entered her second-floor apartment by climbing up to the balcony to a patio outside her apartment. He was in the apartment about forty-five minutes before the victim could put him out.
“The trial court adjudged defendant guilty of assault and committed him for a medical evaluation. At the sentencing the judge said he had examined the reports submitted by the doctors and the Department of Health and Social Services. The judge said defendant had a very substantial prior criminal record, that he had had opportunities for rehabilitation and that the case was ‘extreme,’ a word the judge said he could not over-emphasize because of the risk to the victim. Stating that defendant’s behavior was about as anti-social as it could be, the court sentenced him to six years’ incarceration, less credit for time in the county jail.
“The trial court subsequently permitted defendant to withdraw his plea. The court vacated the conviction and sentence, and reinstated the burglary charge. Both charges were tried to a jury. The first trial resulted in a guilty verdict on the burglary charge but the jury could not agree on the sexual assault charge. Defendant was convicted of second-degree sexual assault in a second trial.
“The victim testified at each trial that she awoke in her apartment with defendant choking her and with a fork to her neck. He was naked and on top of her and demanded sexual intercourse. He unsuccessfully attempted vaginal and anal penetration and fondled her and demanded that she fondle him. During the struggle, he dropped the fork and picked up a picture with a glass front, which he broke, and pressed the picture to her neck. When she insisted on going to the bathroom, he went with her, grabbing her hair and continuing to fon-*712die her. She grabbed his hair but released him when he released her. Defendant then dressed and left the apartment. The victim had locked her front door. Defendant said he came up through her patio door. An investigating officer testified that shortly after the incident the victim was in semi-shock and had neck wounds consisting of three punctures and four scratches but no bleeding.
“The trial court sentenced defendant to concurrent terms of ten years on the burglary and sexual assault charges, less credit for time previously served. The judge said that when imposing the original six-year sentence, he took into account that a plea bargain had been entered, that defendant was an excellent subject for rehabilitation, and that defendant was remorseful. The judge said that when sentencing on a plea bargain, he has reservations as to the guilt of a defendant, but that during the trial he became aware of the victim’s complete innocence and the strength of the state’s case. He believed that defendant had feigned remorse. One basis for that belief was that defendant obtained a new trial on his claim of intoxication at the time of the offenses but offered no evidence of intoxication at trial. The other basis for the judge’s belief was defendant’s unwillingness to accept the overwhelming evidence of his guilt. The judge was convinced on the basis of the presentence report that defendant was not a good subject for rehabilitation.
“When imposing the ten-year sentence for sexual assault, the judge had before him essentially the same objective information in the presentence report as he had when sentencing defendant to six years. The report contained additional objective facts which are irrelevant to our inquiry. Those facts consisted of procedural history, defendant’s employment record before his no contest plea, and an innocuous prison record. The judge did not state that he relied on any of those facts when imposing the longer sentence. He did not include those facts among his reasons for the harsher sentence, as he must under Pearce and Denny if the sentence is to be sustained.
“The statements in the presentence report regarding defendant’s being a threat to the community, his re*713habilitation potential and the recommendation that he be sentenced for an appropriate period are new and objective in the sense that they involve the reported subjective reactions of another person. Those reactions, however, do not differ markedly from those strongly expressed by the judge himself at the first sentencing, and are therefore irrelevant to the Pearce and Denny standards.
“As the judge noted, he could not fault defendant for his counsel’s trial tactic of not pursuing the intoxication defense. Rather, the judge concluded that raising that defense impeached defendant’s previous claim to remorse for what he had done. The judge’s belief that defendant may have feigned remorse when first sentenced and was not remorseful at the second sentencing is not an objective fact.
“The facts related by the prosecutor to the court regarding the assault as a basis for the plea bargain were substantially the same as the facts to which the victim testified. The important difference lies not in the facts themselves but in the reaction of the judge to how they were presented. As the judge put it, hearing the witnesses and seeing the victim is different from hearing the prosecutor’s ‘cold report’ and reading the presentence report.
“The state urges that the difference between live testimony and cold reports relating to the same facts justifies a longer sentence. The state asserts that we should adopt the view expressed in United States v. Kienlen, 415 F.2d 557 (10th Cir. 1969). Kienlen held that a harsher sentence following a new trial may meet the Pearce standard where the trial judge has heard the facts from a witness and a deposition rather than obtaining them from ‘a cold pre-sentence report.’ 415 F.2d at 559-60. But United States v. Tucker, 581 F.2d 602, 607 n. 10 (7th Cir. 1978), when vacating a harsher sentence, rejected Kienlen for having failed ‘strictly to follow’ the Pearce requirement for objective information or identifiable conduct by the defendant after the first sentence.
“We agree with Tucker’s rejection of the distinction between live testimony and a cold report as justification for a harsher sentence. Judicial retaliation could be masked if the trial court’s subjective reaction to the same evidence were allowed to justify a harsher sentence. *714Because due process ‘requires that a defendant be freed of apprehension of such a retaliatory motivation on the part of the sentencing judge/ Pearce, 395 U.S. at 725, the potential for vindictiveness must be prevented.
“The state suggests that because defendant withdrew his original plea of guilty and went to trial, leniency based on his plea of guilty was inappropriate at the resentencing, and that the trial court simply sentenced him without extending that leniency. The state quotes from Corbitt v. New Jersey, 439 U.S. 212, 223 (1978), to the effect that ‘it is constitutionally permissible to take [a guilty plea] into account. ... [I] t is not forbidden to extend a proper degree of leniency in return for guilty pleas.’ The record does not show that the trial court granted leniency to defendant in return for his guilty plea.
“We conclude no showing was made of objective facts first brought to the attention of the trial judge when he imposed the second sentence for sexual assault. The longer sentence for sexual assault therefore does not meet the Pearce and Denny standards. The ten-year sentence must be reduced to the original sentence of six years. Denny, 47 Wis. 2d at 547, 178 N.W.2d at 42.”
The circuit court’s own words most clearly reveal its frustration with its previous sentencing and its attempt to rectify at resentencing what the court perceives as its own error:
“There were three principal considerations, at least on my part, when you were sentenced the first time. The first was it came before me on a plea agreement. . . .
“The second was that I was quite impressed that you were penitent and remorseful at that time and the third was that I was satisfied you were an excellent subject for rehabilitation. And I don’t believe in the validity of any one of those three premises at this time . . .
“I gave you the most lenient sentence that I thought I possibly could justify under the pre-sentence report and giving you also what I considered to be the benefit of the doubt as to your guilt because whenever a District Attorney comes before me and say ‘we are entering into a plea agreement and we are not making a statement and we *715are dismissing a charge’, despite whatever else is said, I always have some mental reservations regarding the guilt, real guilt of the defendant. I wonder if there wasn’t some latent defect in the State’s proof or some other problem that presents a hazard to the State in obtaining a conviction to such an extent that they are willing to make a compromise in a serious case like this so that you get the benefit of that consideration from the Court at the time of the original sentence.
“Now, I have heard the evidence for the first time, I have seen the victim. I have heard the witnesses. It’s a lot different than a cold report that I get from the District Attorney or from what’s embodied in the presen-tence report.
“And I’m convinced, despite the fact there was a hung jury on the one count the first trial, which in view of the — well, I won’t characterize it the way I feel about it, but I felt that the evidence of your guilt is overwhelming in this case, absolutely overwhelming. And consequently, I feel that that’s an altogether different matter to be brought to the Court’s attention at this time where I didn’t hear the testimony and didn’t hear the evidence in the first place.
“And it puts the case in an altogether different light from a sentencing standpoint, despite the fact that there was an admission on your plea the first time. The Court simply didn’t have the detail into the complete innocence of the victim. I certainly didn’t have the knowledge of the strength of the State’s case and I’ll have to admit I gave you the benefit of mental reservations concerning the State’s case, the potential for possible acquittal and also, of course, the interest of protecting the victim.
“So from a guilt phase standpoint in this case, where we have a plea agreement abandoned and then a trial as contrasted with the kind of information I would have had had we tried the case the first time, I get an altogether different blush or view of your guilt than I had at the time of the plea agreement.” (Emphasis added.)
For the reasons set forth herein and by the court of appeals, I would affirm the decision of the court of appeals.
I am authorized to state that Justice Nathan S. Hef-fernan joins in this dissent.