Court Opinion

ID: 9542482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:34:53.869095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:05.942410
License: Public Domain

Larrow, Supr. J.,
(dissenting) The original sentence imposed in this case was in the conjunctive. It consisted of a prison sentence less than the statutory maximum, coupled with the maximum $2000 statutory fine and 2000 day imprisonment for non-payment thereof. The latter provision, in light of the admitted indigency of the respondent, clearly brought the case within the purview of Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235, 90 S.Ct. 2018 (1970). Although that case had not then been decided, the remand from Windsor County Court for re-sentencing was based upon decisions in the lower Federal courts anticipatory of its result.
The resentencing, conducted by another judge after the original trial judge had disqualified himself, increased both the minimum and maximum terms of the prison sentence imposed. The net effect is that this respondent, after the striking of the unconstitutional portion of his original sentence, is now confronted with an effective prison term of greater length.
Cogent reasons for this increase may well exist, but they do not appear from the record. The imposition of what is substantially a maximum permissible sentence, coupled with a disqualification explainable only by a feeling of personal involvement, in my view gives rise to an inference, however rebuttable, of retaliatory policy toward this respondent for having invoked the statutory remedy for vacating his original sentence.
Absent a record “to assure the absence of such a motivation” I would remand for resentence, upon the authority of North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 23 L.Ed.2d 656, 89 S.Ct. 2072 (1969).