Court Opinion

ID: 9455802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:34:01.594555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:44.606739
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent from so much of the Court’s opinion as directs a correction of the sentence.
I would remand to the district court with instructions that would permit it, *1140in its discretion, to conduct a hearing into the question of whether the appellant David Lopez failed to make full disclosure regarding his assets to Judge Wyatt, the judge who first sentenced him. Although it is true, as Judge Jameson states, that Judge Mansfield made no finding that there had been fraudulent misrepresentation or concealment of assets, the record before us leaves me with the impression that Judge Mansfield may have suspected this to be the case. In discussing the increased sentence with Lopez’ counsel, Judge Mansfield stated:
“Yes, but you have to look at it from the standpoint of what the Court saw rather than what you are telling me underlay the figures. When the Court first saw it, all the Court saw was that he had property worth $10,000. The next time the Court saw it, which was when I imposed sentence, he had property which was worth $140,000.”
I am of the opinion that in a case such as this, the second sentencing judge shoud be permitted to examine the question of whether the defendant had misled the Court as to his financial condition when sentence was imposed following the first conviction. Such conduct by a defendant who has been retried, if established on the record at a hearing by the second sentencing judge, would justify an increase in the fines imposed.
This kind of inquiry and finding by the second sentencing judge could hardly be denominated as “vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction.” North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 725, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2080, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1959). It is a finding that, after his first conviction, the defendant engaged in a deliberate attempt to mislead the court as to the amount of his assets, in the hope of being fined in a lesser amount than would have been the case had the facts been fully disclosed. Moreover, as the Court in Pearce noted, the factual data upon which the increased sentence is based would be part of the record, “so that the constitutional legitimacy of the increased sentence may be fully reviewed on appeal.” Id., at 726, 89 S.Ct., at 2081. I cannot believe that by specifying that the increased sentence “must be based upon objective information concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the time of the original sentencing,” id., the Supreme Court intended to let those defendants facing fines in effect escape punishment by concealing the true value of their assets from the court imposing sentence in the first instance.