Court Opinion

ID: 9698230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:45:25.173959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:39.505209
License: Public Domain

YEAGLEY, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Although I am in full agreement with the majority insofar as affirmance of appellant’s conviction for attempted burglary is concerned, I must respectfully dissent from my colleagues’ decision to remand for vacation of appellant’s conviction for destroying private property.
Appellant was originally charged with attempted second-degree burglary, and, following a series of delays, obtained dismissal of that charge, without prejudice, for want of prosecution. The prosecution subsequently made appellant the subject of a second information, in which he was again charged with attempted burglary, and with two additional misdemeanors, including destroying private property.
The majority correctly observes that courts have viewed with suspicion the bringing of more serious charges based on the same facts in the second indictment following a remand. Such prosecutorial conduct gives rise to an inference of prose-cutorial vindictiveness and has a potential chilling effect on a defendant’s assertion of constitutional rights. As the majority notes, a line of cases, usually involving a remand for a new trial, and beginning with North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), have recognized this. In Pearce, the Court held *699violative of due process an increased sentence upon reconviction following a successful appeal absent findings placed in the record by the sentencing judge requisite to rebut the presumption of judicial vindictiveness arising under such circumstances.
In Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 40 L.Ed.2d 628, (1973), the Court extended this rationale to prosecutorial conduct. There, respondent was charged with misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon and was convicted after trial without jury in a County District Couit. Under North Carolina law, respondent was afforded an appeal to Superior Court for a trial de novo; such an appeal annulled the District Court conviction. After filing his notice of appeal, respondent was indicted on felony charges addressing the same conduct which had given rise to the misdemeanor charge against him. The Court held this constitutionally impermissible, and stated that it was guided by the same considerations which underlay its holding in Pearce — the appearance of vindictiveness and a chill on a defendant’s assertion of rights. This too was the basis for the court’s holding in United States v. Groves, 571 F.2d 450 (9th Cir. 1978), on which the majority correctly relies. See also United States v. Ruesga-Martinez, 534 F.2d 1367 (9th Cir. 1976).
I part company with my colleagues, however, with respect to their view that we should remand for vacation of appellant’s conviction here on the second charge under the instant circumstances. I note that that charge required additional proof. The cases discussed above create a heavy presumption of improper prosecutorial motive arising from the rebringing of more serious charges on the same set of facts following dismissal of the original indictment or information. The authorities do not, however, preclude the prosecution from producing evidence to rebut this presumption. Although the Court did not discuss this in Blaekledge, I think it noteworthy that in Pearce, in which judicial conduct was under scrutiny, the Court held that a sentencing judge could rebut the presumption by requisite findings in the record. In both United States v. Groves, supra, and United States v. Ruesga-Martinez, supra, the Ninth Circuit predicated its decision on the prosecution’s failure to meet its burden of rebuttal.
In the instant case, the majority apparently recognizes the right of rebuttal, and holds that the prosecution failed to satisfy this burden. Accordingly, the majority remands with instructions to vacate appellant’s conviction on the additional charge. With all due respect, I fail to see how my colleagues can remand with such instructions where the prosecution has been afforded no meaningful opportunity to demonstrate that the additional charges were not improperly motivated. In so doing, the majority renders meaningless the very right it appears to recognize. The majority concludes, in note 10, that the prosecution has offered no adequate explanation for the additional charges. In both United States v. Groves, supra, and United States v. Ruesga-Martinez, supra, the Ninth Circuit examined and rejected with adequate discussion the prosecutorial explanations there offered.
In the instant case, I think we lack information necessary to impose so drastic a measure as the vacation of a judgment of conviction on an added charge involving additional facts. The bringing of new or additional charges is considered ordinarily to be a matter of prosecutorial discretion.1 In my view we should remand for a hearing at which the prosecution is given an opportunity to satisfy its burden of showing that vindictiveness did not motivate it to bring the additional charges against appellant the second time around. The prosecution may, for example, establish that new evidence in support of the destroying private property charge came to its attention in the period between the first and second informations, or that a previously unknown witness came forward during this period. As such, the prosecution would be like the sentencing judge who, under Pearce, may demonstrate that he increased the sentence following reconviction due to some extrinsic, aggra*700vating factor. I believe this is well within the letter and spirit of the cases on which both the majority and I rely, and I think that a reasonable balancing of the interests of due process and prosecutorial discretion requires that we do no less.

. Cf. Bordenkircher v. Hayes, - U.S. -, 98 S.Ct. 663, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978).