Court Opinion

ID: 9461942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:28:26.889502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:20.070749
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree that Floyd should have been, given credit for the time served, but from that point onward I regret to find myself in disagreement with the majority opinion.
Floyd pleaded guilty to two separate sales of heroin. There was nothing wrong with the plea except that prior to its acceptance Floyd had not been advised of the special parole term. This omission went only to the extent of his punishment, it had nothing to do with the guilt which he had confessed, but for this omission the guilty plea was set aside at the District Court level.
Floyd then requested a trial. The jury found him to be as guilty as his previous plea had admitted him to have been. When his legal maneuvers netted a more severe sentence than he had received the first time Floyd, quite naturally, was unhappy.
So, after he has once judicially confessed his guilt and after he has subsequently met with a jury adjudication to the same effect, he again repairs to the Temple of Justice, complaining that a Judge wholly ignorant of the prior sentence could not legally assess a more severe sentence, and this despite a full development of the facts ordinarily absent on a plea of guilty.
The majority opinion quite correctly states that in the absence of vindictiveness or possibility of vindictiveness more severe sentences imposed following re-*1036conviction are constitutionally valid (citing cases). It then proceeds to quote Blackledge v. Perry [417 U.S. 21, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 40 L.Ed.2d 628 (1974)] to the effect that due process is offended “only by those [possibilities] that pose a realistic likelihood of ‘vindictiveness’ ”.
I am of the firm, unequivocal view that Floyd’s resentencing is affirmatively shown to have been utterly bereft of any “realistic likelihood of vindictiveness”, hence I would affirm the judgment of the District Court, except, of course, for giving credit for the time served.
In fact, at sentencing Judge Allgood expressed his concern for this appellant when he made the following remarks:
“I’m going to recommend an institution for you to serve this sentence where you can, if you wish, complete your education and where if you need any assistance physically, medical assistance, you can get it. I don’t know. I make no decision about that. I recommend that this sentence be served in Texarkana.”
I am unwilling to accept as a matter of law the idea expressed in the majority opinion that there can be “a reasonable apprehension that judges who work together daily and must preside at other’s retrials will have a stake in discouraging such reviews”.
Moreover, it stands wholly unsupported by the facts in this case. Judge Allgood’s solemn statements totally refute any such notion. If Floyd, for his own advantage, wishes to interpret those statements in some other manner, I would remain wholly unperturbed. The facts surrounding Floyd’s guilt were not developed in the guilty plea proceedings; they were fully developed in the trial which Judge Allgood heard. I think the trial judge is as entitled to consider these facts as he is to consider post conviction conduct as per Pearce.
Except for credit for time served, I would let this sentence stand unaltered.