Court Opinion

ID: 9457202
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:15:51.219592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:15.579127
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Chief Judge.
This is an appeal from the dismissal of a petition for habeas corpus brought by a state prisoner, Walsh, whose sentence was increased by the Appellate Division of the Superior Court. The Appellate Division is authorized to review sentences on the appeal of a defendant, and to diminish, affirm, or, after hearing, increase the sentence. Mass.G.L. c. 278 § 28A-D. There is no statutory requirement that the reasons for the decision be stated.1 Petitioner, hereafter defendant, asserts that the double jeopardy clause bars the Appellate Division from increasing his sentence. Alternatively, he contends that the court should have been required to state the reasons for its decision. He has exhausted his state court remedies; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has rejected both contentions.2 Walsh v. Commonwealth, 1970 Mass. A.S. 1315, 260 N.E.2d 911. We have indicated lack of acceptance of defendant’s first, see Bryant v. Moore, 1 Cir., 1971, 438 F.2d 1230, 1231; Marano v. United States, 1 Cir., 1967, 374 F.2d 583, 585 n. 2, but have not before considered his second contention.
Defendant asserts that the Massachusetts practice constitutes double jeopardy, in that it unconstitutionally penalizes a defendant for taking an appeal. We believe this a misconception. Some history, however, is needed to put defendant’s claim in proper perspective.
In Maraño v. United States, supra, we introduced the rule that a defendant who won a new trial on appeal could not have his sentence increased, if he were again convicted, except for matters that had occurred after the first trial. We based our decision upon considerations of due process, stating that to hold otherwise would unduly chill the defendant’s right of appeal. In Patton v. State of North Carolina, 4 Cir., 1967, 381 F.2d 636, cert. denied 390 U.S. 905, 88 S.Ct. 818, 19 L.Ed.2d 871, Chief Judge Sobeloff placed a more restrictive constitutional limitation upon the state — the sentence could not be increased following *1211a retrial under any circumstance. In addition to due process the court invoked principles of equal protection and double jeopardy, each of which, it stated, compelled its result.
The Patton rule has not stood. In North Carolina v. Pearce, 1969, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656, the Court rejected, almost summarily, the defendant’s contentions that double jeopardy and equal protection prevented the imposition of a more severe sentence following a retrial. It held, however, that the due process clause limits the right of a state to increase the sentence, announcing the same rule that we had adopted in Maraño. It said:
“[Ejven if the first conviction has been set aside for nonconstitutional error, the imposition of a penalty upon the defendant for having successfully pursued a statutory right of appeal or collateral remedy would be no less a violation of due process of law.” (724, 89 S.Ct. at 2080)
“Due process of law * * requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he receives after a new trial.” (725, 89 S.Ct. at 2080)
Pearce thus reaffirms the American principle that the double jeopardy clause does not absolutely bar all proceedings which could literally be said to place the defendant twice in jeopardy. See United States v. Tateo, 1964, 377 U.S. 463, 465, 84 S.Ct. 1587, 12 L.Ed.2d 448. A state may condition a right to appeal on submission to retrial so long as that condition does not unreasonably fetter the right to an appeal.
The Massachusetts procedure here challenged should be tested by this same standard of reasonableness. See also Lemieux v. Robbins, 1 Cir., 1969, 414 F. 2d 353, 355, cert. denied 397 U.S. 1017, 90 S.Ct. 1247, 25 L.Ed.2d 432. As in Pearce, the Massachusetts procedure does not permit the state to reopen the question of sentence on its own initiative. Were it to do so, it would of course violate the proscription against double jeopardy. See United States v. Benz, 1931, 282 U.S. 304, 51 S.Ct. 113, 75 L.Ed. 354 (dicta); Frankel v. United States, 6 Cir., 1942, 131 F.2d 756. Instead, Massachusetts simply conditions a defendant’s right to appeal the length of his sentence upon the state’s having a corresponding right to establish that the sentence should be increased rather than diminished. Such a condition might constitute double jeopardy if it subjected the defendant to the dilemma of having to choose between staying in jail under an erroneous sentence for one offense and seeking a review with the accompanying risk of having his overall sentence increased. See Pugliese v. United States, 1 Cir., 1965, 353 F.2d 514. The Pearce rule was designed to alleviate a similar dilemma in the context of an appeal on the merits. The defendant in the instant case, however, faces no such dilemma. He attacks, not the validity of his sentence, but only its appropriateness. In a related context both this court, Lemieux v. Robbins, supra, and the Massachusetts court, Mann v. Commonwealth, 1971 Mass. A.S. 1027, 271 N.E.2d 331, have held that a state may provide as the only appeal from a district court conviction a trial de novo in the Superior Court in which all issues are decided as if there had been no'prior proceeding. Though a defendant is generally entitled to the benefit of any mistake a trial judge may make in setting a sentence too low, it seems not unreasonable for a state to require that he surrender that benefit if he chooses to open up the issue.
While we do not think that, even per se, the Massachusetts procedure is constitutionally impermissible, it is even less so if one considers the benefits to the Commonwealth. A rule barring sentence increases might tend to jeopardize the very purposes for which the Appellate Division procedure was designed. See generally Eighteenth Report of the Judicial Conference (December 1942), Pub.Doc.No. 144, pp. 28-30. One of *1212these was to provide the Superior Courts with assistance in more accurate and generally uniform sentencing. If the Appellate Division could only reduce sentences, a Superior Court in doubt as to the appropriate sentence might tend to impose a too-long sentence, knowing that such a sentence could be reduced but that a sentence which was too short could not be increased. Cf. Lemieux v. Robbins, supra, 414 F.2d at 356; North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, 395 U.S. at 721-722 n. 18, 89 S.Ct. 2072.
Another purpose was, by reducing untoward disparities in sentence, to improve general prisoner morale. See E. Powers, Basic Structure of The Administration of Criminal Justice in Massachusetts (5th ed. 1968) pp. 64-65. The position urged by the defendant would lessen the ability of the system to attain this objective. An excessively short sentence is as disruptive as an excessively long one.
In sum, we find it constitutionally permissible to condition the grant of a defendant’s appeal of the appropriateness of his sentence on the state’s having a right to cross-appeal on the same matter.
Alternatively, defendant argues that if the Appellate Division may increase-a sentence, Pearce requires that the reasons be articulated. While as a matter of policy such a requirement might be thought desirable, we do not find that it is constitutionally dictated. The argument that as a matter of common law practice appellate courts normally do not reverse without stating reasons proves too much. It is true that appellate courts, passing upon substantive questions, usually write opinions, both to show the facts that they have in mind, and the principles that move them. Courts imposing sentences, however, normally do not. In order to impose this special obligation as constitutionally required upon a court which is not, like the federal district courts, subject to our general supervision, some real'loss to the litigant should be shown. We do not think that the trial judge has had a different view of the appropriate sentence is enough to establish that the defendant suffers either substantive or procedural harm if the Appellate Division imposes sentence in the customary manner without stating reasons.
The Appellate Division is considering not a narrow issue, but the entire sentence de novo, by comparison with general sentencing practices, in the light of defendant’s character and total conduct. Recitation of the court’s findings and reasoning would be as difficult as in the Pearce situation it would be simple. More significantly, the need for recitation is less. Although we hesitate to draw comparisons, a trial court which has been reversed and then required to engage in a perhaps lengthy retrial, only to end up where it started, may find it difficult in the best of conscience not to feel some irritation towards the defendant. The likelihood that an appellate court hearing a brief appeal would feel vindictive seems to us far more remote. Moreover, North Carolina in Pearce provided an appeal from the resentencing, for which a record would be desirable. The Massachusetts statute does not permit a further appeal. We do not believe the state is required to give one. Cf. Rinaldi v. Yeager, 1966, 384 U.S. 305, 86 S.Ct. 1497, 16 L.Ed.2d 577. Correspondingly, we do not see why, as constitutional protection to the defendant, the court is required to give its reasons. Indeed, unless we are going to say there must be a further appeal, who is to say whether they are good enough ?
Affirmed.

. Comparable statutes exist in three other states. Alaska Stat., § 12.55.120 (Supp. 1969); Me.Rev.Stat.Ann. Tit. 15, §§ 2141-44 (Supp.1970); Md.Ann.Code Art. 26, §§ 132-38 (1966).

. There are four companion cases; Thompson v. Picard, Santiago v. Picard, Berrios v. Picard, and Ortiz v. Picard. In none of these has the petitioner exhausted his state court remedies. We agree, however, that the state court’s decision in the Walsh case excuses them from further pursuing the issue in the Massachusetts courts. Pratt v. State of Maine, 1 Cir., 1969, 408 F.2d 311.