Court Opinion

ID: 9450780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:57:32.675977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:26.855274
License: Public Domain

HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
It is true, of course, that the sentence of October 31, 1962 was not void. Because it was imposed in the defendant’s absence, it was vulnerable to collateral attack, but, as the majority clearly state, the defendant could have affirmed it and avoided all risk of having to serve more than the three-year sentence then imposed upon him. Positive affirmation was not even requisite. To be secure in the protection of the sentence, he had only to refrain from attacking it.
Walker, however, chose to attack the sentence. He sought its vacation.* *432Clearly he hoped that the new sentence would be for a shorter term or would be suspended in whole or in part, but he was told, and clearly he understood, that if the sentence of October 31, 1962 was vacated, a sentence for a longer term might be imposed upon him.
Actually, Walker got exactly what he sought. The 1962 sentence was vacated, imposition of sentence was suspended, and he was placed on probation for five years. The result was his immediate release from prison, and Walker walked out of the courtroom a happy and grateful man. His gratitude soured only later when, because of a probation violation, a five-year sentence, with appropriate credits, was imposed upon him, that being within the period during which he would have been under supervision if he had not violated the terms of his probation.
When the sentence of October 31, 1962 was vacated on Walker’s motion, it was vacated for all purposes. The case then stood as if Walker had never been sentenced. He stood then before the court convicted, with all of the rights to be present and of allocution that every defendant has when the sentence is imposed immediately after his conviction. The court was as free to impose any sentence authorized by law which then appeared appropriate in light of all of the facts then known to the court as if no earlier sentence had ever been imposed upon him.
This situation, in my view, is indistinguishable from a sentence imposed upon a defendant after a new trial which he has sought and obtained. When a sentence is imposed upon a defendant following a first trial, the Government may not attack it, but the defendant can. If he chooses to do so and succeeds in obtaining a retrial, he suffers no detriment from the sentence imposed after the first trial, and is entitled to no benefit from it. If his second trial results in a conviction, any lawful sentence may be imposed upon him without regard to the sentence passed after the abortive first trial.
In that situation, of course, a heavier sentence ought not to be imposed upon a defendant because he sought vindication of his legal rights and succeeded in obtaining an order for a new trial. Judicial vindictiveness for resort to judicial processes is morally wrong, but the judge who presides at a second trial has the power and the duty to impose any sentence authorized by law, which, in light of all the facts and circumstances then known *433to him, other than the defendant’s litigiousness, seems most appropriate and just.
Here, there was no suggestion of a visitation of a penalty upon Walker for having sought a vacation of his first sentence. Though it ultimately resulted in a sentence for a longer term, that was consequent only upon a violation of his probation. Originally, Walker got exactly what he wanted, release from prison. As it then seemed to him and to the judge, he was rewarded for having moved to vacate his sentence, not penalized.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

 I think the record shows that Walker sought a vacation of the sentence rather than its affirmation, which the majority opinion states.
Originally, Walker wrote asking that he “be returned to Your Honor’s Court for the purpose of being resentenced.” In the context of Behrens and Walker’s later verbal explanation of his motive, the request may have been equivocal, but certainly not inconsistent with a motion to vacate. The District Judge thought that the appropriate relief, and at the hearing he went to considerable pains to make certain that Walker did want the judgments vacated, and that he fully understood the risk he ran. The Judge asked Walker, “ * * * Now, do I understand that you wish to formally move to vacate the sentence that was imposed by Judge Hutcheson on October 31, 1962? If that is so, then, of course, *432I would also have to vacate the sentence that I imposed upon you on April 23, 1963. Is that your desire?”
The judge then proceeded to explain to Walker that, if he moved to vacate the sentences and if they were vacated, the slate would be clean and that he ran the risk that the sentence which would then be imposed would be heavier than the one originally imposed upon him. At the conclusion of the colloquy during which Walker stated that he recognized the risk which he ran, he stated, “Yes, sir. Well, then I’d like to go ahead and vacate it and have Your Honor complete it, or whatever is necessary.”
Judge Hoffman’s order, itself, recites, “[T]he defendant having moved the Court to vacate the orders * *
and its operative provision is that the orders be “vacated on motion of the defendant * *
It is true that Walker’s explanation of his motive at one point might justify an inference that his wish was an affirmation or reimposition of the earlier sentence. It is the kind of deferential explanation which might be expected of one attacking an earlier order of the Court. It does not indicate to me any effort to restrict the Court’s discretion, however, for it, itself, contains references to possible lighter sentences and his recognition of the risk of a heavier one. It cannot wipe from the slate his unequivocal statement that he wished to vacate the sentences and his ready acceptance of the Court’s order vacating the Court’s earlier sentences and reciting that it did so upon Walker’s motion.
Furthermore, I cannot construe the Court’s searching inquiry as to Walker’s wish to vacate the sentence as a representation that it was the only or an appropriate means of affirmation of the earlier sentence. Implicit in the whole colloquy was the alternative that Walker do nothing, in which event the earlier sentence would stand validated.