Opinion · Supreme Court of the United States
Pennsylvania v. Goldhammer
474 U.S. 28
- Type
- Opinion
- Court
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
- Date
- 1985-11-12
- Topic
- bankruptcy
holding that there is no qualitative difference between resen-tencing after vacatur and resentencing following retrial | holding that the double jeopardy clause did not bar resentencing on counts that were affirmed on appeal when a sentence of imprisonment on another count was vacated | remanding for consideration of whether Pennsylvania law authorized the State to obtain review of sentences | resentencing to permit court to take into account original sentencing intention after some counts reversed for statute of limitations problems does not violate the Fifth Amendment | allowing federal appellate courts to change the sentence of those considered a “dangerous special offender” without violating double jeopardy | Resentencing after an appeal intrudes even less upon the values protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause than does a resentencing after retrial. | applying DiFrancesco instead of Bulling-ton and stating that "a resentencing after an appeal intrudes even less upon the values protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause than does a resentencing after a retrial” | "[T]he decisions of this Court `clearly establish that a sentenc[ing in a noncapital case] does not have the qualities of constitutional finality that attend an acquittal' " | “[T]he decisions of this Court ‘clearly establish that a sentencing in a noncapi-tal case] does not have the qualities of constitutional finality that attend an acquittal’ ” | Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar resentencing on counts involving suspended sentences when sentence of imprisonment on another count is vacated | A resentencing after a successful appeal intrudes even less on the values protected by double jeopardy than does a resentencing following retrial, as in Pearce | A resen-tencing after a successful appeal intrudes even less on the values protected by double jeopardy than does a resen-tencing following retrial, as in Pearce | double jeopardy clause does not bar resentencing for a conviction on which sentence was suspended after the defendant obtains a reversal of the conviction on which sentence was imposed | double jeopardy clause does not bar resentencing on counts affirmed on appeal when a sentence of imprisonment on another count is vacated | theft by unlawful taking does not include fraud or breach of fiduciary duty which are the two elements of tolling statute of limitations | in absence of aggravating or mitigating factors an individual sentencing judge has no discretion to deviate from the presumptive term | when the conviction under which defendant was originally sentenced is vacated, defendant may be resentenced under counts where sentence had previously been suspended | double jeopardy clause does not bar resentencing on counts affirmed on appeal when a sentence of imprisonment on another count is vacated | "a resentencing after an appeal intrudes even less upon the values protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause than does a resentencing after retrial" | “We agree with the Commonwealth that Appellee had no legitimate expectation of finality in his sentence after he has filed an appeal therefrom.” | remand to determine whether state law precluded expectation of finality in sentence
Citator
- Cited by
- 65 opinions
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held below that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the
Respondent was convicted in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on 56 counts of forgery and 56 counts of theft. He was sentenced by the trial court to two-to-five years of imprisonment on a single theft count and five years of probation on one of the forgery counts. Sentence was suspended on the remaining counts.
Respondent appealed all 112 convictions to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. That court ruled that the statute of limitations barred the prosecution of 34 of the theft counts, including the count on which respondent had received his sentence of imprisonment.
On appeal by the Commonwealth, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the Superior Court’s ruling on the statute of limitations. In addition, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denied petitioner’s request that the case be remanded to the trial court for resentencing on the remaining 22 theft counts. The court acknowledged that a defendant could be twice sentenced for the same count when there was an intervening retrial at the request of the defendant, but it held that resentencing on the counts which were affirmed after an appeal by the Commonwealth is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause when the sentence of imprisonment on another count is vacated. 507 Pa., at 248-251, 489 A. 2d, at 1314-1315, citing North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711 (1969).
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s rationale is inconsistent with the rationale of the holding of this Court in DiFrancesco, supra. In DiFrancesco we upheld the constitutionality of 18 U. S. C. §3576, which allows the United States to appeal to the court of appeals the sentence given a “dangerous special offender” by a district court, and allows the court
We noted that the decisions of this Court “clearly establish that a sentencing in a noncapital case] does not have the qualities of constitutional finality that attend an acquittal.” DiFrancesco, supra, at 134. In North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, we held that a court could sentence a defendant on retrial more severely than after the first trial. Any distinction between the situation in Pearce and that in DiFrancesco is “no more than a ‘conceptual nicety.’” DiFrancesco, supra, at 136 (quoting Pearce, supra, at 722). Indeed, a resentenc-ing after an appeal intrudes even less upon the values protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause than does a resentenc-ing after retrial:
“[T]he basic design of the double jeopardy provision [is to] bar . . . repeated attempts to convict, with consequent subjection of the defendant to embarrassment, expense, anxiety, and insecurity, and the possibility that he may be found guilty even though innocent. These considerations, however, have no significant application to the prosecution’s statutorily granted right to review a sentence. This limited appeal does not involve a retrial or approximate the ordeal of a trial on the basic issue of guilt or innocence.” DiFrancesco, supra, at 136.
In DiFrancesco a federal statute clearly allowed the appellate review of the sentences at issue. The Court noted that, in light of that statute, the defendant could not claim any expectation of finality in his original sentencing. 449 U. S., at 136,139. Here, because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that resentencing was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause, there was no need to consider below whether the Pennsylvania laws in effect at the time allowed the State to obtain review of the sentences on the counts for which the sentence had been suspended. We reverse and remand the
Reversed and remanded.
Justice Brennan dissents from summary disposition and would vote to deny the petition. Justice Marshall dissents from this summary disposition, which has been ordered without affording the parties prior notice or an opportunity to file briefs on the merits. See Maggio v. Fulford, 462 U. S. 111, 120-121 (1983) (Marshall, J., dissenting); Wyrick v. Fields, 459 U. S. 42, 51-52 (1982) (Marshall, J., dissenting). Justice Blackmun would grant the petition and set the case for argument.