Pennington v. State.‎(143)‎, 2017 Ark. 305

In 1978 Pennington pled guilty in three Pulaski County cases to murder, aggravated robbery, and related offenses and received multiple life sentences and a 20-year term; the judgments did not specify concurrent or consecutive, and under the law then in effect sentences ran concurrently unless stated otherwise.
In 2014 the Arkansas Supreme Court granted Pennington’s habeas petition, held his life-with-parole sentence unauthorized, and remanded for resentencing.
At the resentencing the trial court reduced the life sentences to term-of-years sentences (various 240- and 600-month terms) and ordered the sentence in CR77-1933 to run consecutively to the sentences in the other two cases, producing an aggregated 840-month term.
Pennington appealed, arguing the circuit court lacked authority to convert concurrently imposed sentences (already placed into execution) into consecutive sentences after resentencing.
The trial court and the majority held that because the original sentences were invalid and the court on remand could lawfully reimpose any sentence that could have been imposed in 1978, it had authority to impose consecutive sentences; the orders were affirmed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the circuit court could order, on resentencing, that CR77-1933 run consecutively to Pennington’s other cases	Pennington: original concurrent sentences had been placed into execution, so the court lacked authority to change them to consecutive (relying on Hadley/Nelson/Cashion)	State: original sentences were invalid and remanded; under Campbell the court on resentencing may impose any sentence legally available in 1978, including consecutive terms	Court: Affirmed — resentencing court had authority to impose consecutive sentences because the original sentences were invalid and consecutive terms were lawful in 1978

Hadley v. State, 322 Ark. 472 (1995) (held trial court cannot amend a valid sentence to consecutive after it has been put into execution)
Campbell v. State, 288 Ark. 213 (1986) (on resentencing for an error courts may impose any sentence lawfully available at the original sentencing)
Avants v. State, 293 Ark. 24 (1987) (corrected-judgment context distinguishing amended judgments from reversed-and-remanded cases)
North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711 (1969) (limits on vindictive resentencing; more severe resentencing permissible if not vindictive)