Lead Opinion
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, IV, and V, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which The Chief Justice and Justice Thomas join.
In this case, we consider once again the applicability of the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause in the context of capital-sentencing proceedings.
I
On Sunday evening, April 12,1987, petitioner David Allen Sattazahn and his accomplice, Jeffrey Hammer, hid in a wooded area waiting to rob Richard Boyer, manager of the Heidelberg Family Restaurant. Sattazahn carried a .22-caliber Ruger semiautomatic pistol and Hammer a .41-caliber revolver. They accosted Boyer in the restaurant’s parking lot at closing time. With guns drawn, they demanded the bank deposit bag containing the day’s receipts. Boyer threw the bag toward the roof of the restaurant. Petitioner commanded Boyer to retrieve the bag, but instead of complying Boyer tried to run away. Both petitioner and Hammer fired shots, and Boyer fell dead. The two men then grabbed the deposit bag and fled.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania prosecuted petitioner and sought the death penalty. On May 10, 1991, a jury returned a conviction of first-, second-, and third-degree murder, and various other charges. In accordance with Penn
Pennsylvania law provides that, in the penalty phase of capital proceedings:
“(iv) the verdict must be a sentence of death if the jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance .. . and no mitigating circumstance or if the jury unanimously finds one or more aggravating circumstances which outweigh any mitigating circumstances. The verdict must be a sentence of life imprisonment in all other cases.
“(v) the court may, in its discretion, discharge the jury if it is of the opinion that further deliberation will not result in a unanimous agreement as to the sentence, in which case the court shall sentence the defendant to life imprisonment.” § 9711(c) (Purdon Supp. 2002)'.
After both sides presented their evidence, the jury deliberated for some 3½ hours, App. 23, after which it returned a note signed by the foreman which read: “We, the jury are hopelessly deadlocked at 9-3 for life imprisonment. Each one is deeply entrenched in their [sic] position. We do not expect anyone to change his or her position.” Id., at 25. Petitioner then moved “under 9711(e), subparagraph 1, sub-paragraph Roman Numeral 5, that the jury be discharged and that [the court] enter a sentence of life imprisonment.” Id., at 22. The trial judge, in accordance with Pennsylvania
Petitioner appealed to the Pennsylvania Superior Court. That court concluded that the trial judge had erred in instructing the jury in connection with various offenses with which petitioner was charged, including first-degree murder. It accordingly reversed petitioner’s first-degree murder conviction and remanded for a new trial. Commonwealth v. Sattazahn,
On remand, Pennsylvania filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty. In addition to the aggravating circumstance alleged at the first sentencing hearing, the notice also alleged a second aggravating circumstance, petitioner’s significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence to the person. (This was based on guilty pleas to a murder, multiple burglaries, and a robbery entered after the first trial.) Petitioner moved to prevent Pennsylvania from seeking the death penalty and from adding the second aggravating circumstance on retrial. The trial court denied the motion, the Superior Court affirmed the denial, App. 73, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to review the ruling, Commonwealth v. Sattazahn,
On direct appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed both the verdict of guilt and the sentence of death on retrial.
A
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment commands that “[n]o person shall ... be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Under this Clause, once a defendant is placed in jeopardy for an offense, and jeopardy terminates with respect to that offense, the defendant may neither be tried nor punished a second time for the same offense. North Carolina v. Pearce,
In Stroud, the only offense at issue was that of murder, and the sentence was imposed by a judge who did not have to make any further findings in order to impose the death penalty. Id., at 18. In Bullington v. Missouri,
We were, however, careful to emphasize that it is not the mere imposition of a life sentence that raises a double-jeopardy bar. We discussed Stroud, a case in which a defendant who had been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment obtained a reversal of his conviction and a new trial when the Solicitor General confessed error. In Stroud, the Court unanimously held that the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar imposition of the death penalty at the new trial.
Later decisions refined Bullington’s rationale. In Arizona v. Rumsey,
“The trial court entered findings denying the existence of each of the seven statutory aggravating circumstances, and as required by state law, the court then entered judgment in respondent’s favor on the issue of death. That judgment, based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to the life sentence, amounts to an acquittal on the merits and, as such, bars any retrial of the appropriateness of the death penalty.” Ibid. (emphasis added).
Rumsey thus reaffirmed that the relevant inquiry for double-jeopardy purposes was not whether the defendant received a life sentence the first time around, but rather whether a first life sentence was an “acquittal” based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to the life' sentence — i. e., findings that the government failed to prove one or more aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
A later case in the line, Poland v. Arizona,
B
Normally, “a retrial following a ‘hung jury’ does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.” Richardson v. United States,
We disagree. Under the Bullington line of cases just discussed, the touchstone for double-jeopardy protection in capital-sentencing proceedings is whether there has been an “acquittal.” Petitioner here cannot establish that the jury or the court “acquitted” him during his first capital-sentencing proceeding. As to the jury: The verdict form returned by the foreman stated that the jury deadlocked 9-to-3 on whether to impose the death penalty; it made no findings with respect to the alleged aggravating circumstance. That result — or more appropriately, that non-result — cannot fairly be called an acquittal “based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to the life sentence.” Rumsey, supra, at 211.
The entry of a life sentence by the judge was not “acquittal,” either. As the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explained:
“‘Under Pennsylvania’s sentencing scheme, the judge has no discretion to fashion sentence once he finds that the jury is deadlocked. The statute directs him to enter a life sentence. 42 Pa. C. S. §9711(c)(1)(v) (. . . if . . . further deliberation will not result in a unanimous agreement as to the sentence, . . . the court shall sentence the defendant to life imprisonment.) (emphasis added). The judge makes no findings and resolves no*110 factual matter. Since judgment is not based on findings which resolve some factual matter, it is not sufficient to establish legal entitlement to a life sentence. A default judgment does not trigger a double jeopardy bar to the death penalty upon retrial.’ ”563 Pa., at 548 ,763 A. 2d, at 367 (quoting Martorano,535 Pa., at 194 ,634 A. 2d, at 1070 ).
It could be argued, perhaps, that the statutorily required entry of a life sentence creates an “entitlement” even without an “acquittal,” because that is what the Pennsylvania Legislature intended — i. e., it intended that the life sentence should survive vacation of the underlying conviction. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, did not find such intent in the statute — and there was eminently good cause not to do so. A State’s simple interest in closure might make it willing to accept the default penalty of life imprisonment when the conviction is affirmed and the case is, except for that issue, at an end — but unwilling to do so when the case must be retried anyway. And its interest in conservation of resources might make it willing to leave the sentencing issue unresolved (and the default life sentence in place) where the cost of resolving it is the empaneling of a new jury and, in all likelihood, a repetition of much of the guilt phase of the first trial — though it is eager to attend to that unfinished business if there is to be a new jury and a new trial anyway.
III
A
When Bullington, Rumsey, and Poland were decided, capital-sentencing proceedings were understood to be just that: sentencing proceedings. Whatever “hallmarks of [a] trial” they might have borne, Bullington,
Recent developments, however, have illuminated this part of our jurisprudence. Our decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey,
Just last Term we recognized the import of Apprendi in the context of capital-sentencing proceedings. In Ring v. Arizona,
We can think of no principled reason to distinguish, in this context, between what constitutes an offense for purposes of the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee and what constitutes an “offence” for purposes of the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause. Cf. Monge v. California,
B
For purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause, then, “first-degree murder” under Pennsylvania law — the offense of which petitioner was convicted during the guilt phase of his proceedings — is properly understood to be a lesser included offense of “first-degree murder plus aggravating circumstance(s).” See Ring, supra, at 609. Thus, if petitioner’s first sentencing jury had unanimously concluded that Pennsylvania failed to prove any aggravating circumstances, that conclusion would operate as an “acquittal” of the greater offense — which would bar Pennsylvania from retrying petitioner on that greater offense (and thus, from seeking the death penalty) on retrial. Cf. Rumsey, supra, at 211.
But that is not what happened. Petitioner was convicted in the guilt phase of his first trial of the lesser offense of first-degree murder. During the sentencing phase, the jury
IV
The dissent reads the Court’s decision in United States v. Scott,
First, it is an understatement to say that “Scott . . . did not home in on a case like [petitioner’s],” post, at 123. The statement upon which the dissent relies — that double jeopardy “may” attach when the “trial judge terminates the proceedings favorably to the defendant on a basis not related to factual guilt or innocence,”
Second, the dictum in Scott does not even embrace the present case. The petitioner here did not “insist” upon a merits determination, but to the contrary asked that the jury be dismissed as hung. As the dissent recognizes, when the jury announced that it was deadlocked, petitioner “move[d] ‘that the jury be discharged’ and that a life sentence be entered under [Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 42,] §9711(c)(1)(v).” Post, at 125, n. 5. It is no response to say that “[t]he judge did not grant [the] motion,” but instead made a legal determination whether petitioner was entitled to the judgment he sought. Ibid. Surely double-jeopardy protections cannot hinge on whether a trial court characterizes its action as self-initiated or in response to motion. Cf. Scott, supra, at 96. What actually happened in this case is the same as what happened in Scott, where we denied double-jeopardy protection: (1) the defendant moved for entry of a judgment in his favor on procedural grounds (there, delay in indictment; here, a hung jury); (2) the judge measured facts (there, the length of delay; here, the likelihood of the jury’s producing a verdict) against a legal standard to determine whether such relief was appropriate; and (3) concluding that it was, granted the relief.
Nor, in these circumstances, does the prospect of a second capital-sentencing proceeding implicate any of the “perils against which the Double Jeopardy Clause seeks to protect.” Post, at 124 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). The dissent stresses that a defendant in such circumstances is “subject to the ‘ordeal’ of a second full-blown life or death trial,” which “ ‘compels] [him] to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity.’ ” Ibid, (quoting Green v. United States, supra, at 187); see also post, at 127. But as even the dissent must admit, post, at 125, we have not found this concern determinative of double jeopardy in all circumstances. And it should not be so here. This case hardly presents the specter of “an
V
In addition to his double-jeopardy claim, petitioner raises a freestanding claim alleging deprivation of due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. He contends that, regardless of whether the imposition of the death sentence at the second trial violated the Double Jeopardy Clause, it unfairly deprived him of his “life” and “liberty” interests in the life sentence resulting from his first sentencing proceeding. He frames the argument in these terms:
“Pennsylvania created a constitutionally protected life and liberty interest in the finality of the life judgment statutorily mandated as a result of a [deadlocked] jury. That right vested when the court found the jury deadlocked and imposed a mandatory life sentence. Subjecting [petitioner to a capital resentencing once that right has vested violated [D]ue [P]rocess.” Reply Brief for Petitioner 18-19.
We think not. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment commands that “[n]o State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without dm process of law . . . .” (Emphasis added.) Nothing indicates that any “life” or “liberty” interest that Pennsylvania law may have given peti
At bottom, petitioner’s due-process claim is nothing more than his double-jeopardy claim in different clothing. As we have said:
“The Bill of Rights speaks in explicit terms to many aspects of criminal procedure, and the expansion of those constitutional guarantees under the open-ended rubric of the Due Process Clause invites undue interference with both considered legislative judgments and the careful balance that the Constitution strikes between liberty and order.” Medina v. California,505 U. S. 437 , 443 (1992).
We decline petitioner’s invitation to hold that the Due Process Clause provides greater double-jeopardy protection than does the Double Jeopardy Clause.
* * *
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court correctly concluded that neither the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause nor the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause barred Pennsylvania from seeking the death penalty against petitioner on retrial. The judgment of that court is, therefore,
Affirmed.
Notes
Justice Kennedy joins all but Part III of this opinion.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join Parts I, II, IV, and V of the Court’s opinion in this case. I do not join Part III, which would further extend the reach of Apprendi v. New Jersey,
I would resolve petitioner’s double jeopardy claim on the sole ground that under Bullington v. Missouri,
When, as in this case, the jury deadlocks in the penalty phase of a capital trial, it does not “decide” that the prosecution has failed to prove its case for the death penalty. Rather, the jury makes no decision at all. Petitioner’s jury did not “agre[e] ... that the prosecution ha[d] not proved its case.” Bullington, supra, at 443 (emphasis added). It did not make any findings about the existence of the aggravating or mitigating circumstances. See Rumsey, supra, at 211 (where the trial judge “entered findings denying the existence of each of the seven statutory aggravating circumstances,” the resulting “judgment, based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to the life sentence, amounts to an acquittal on the merits and, as such, bars any
That Pennsylvania law mandates a life sentence when a capital sentencing jury deadlocks does not, for the reasons given by the Court, ante, at 110, transform that life sentence into a death penalty acquittal. Because petitioner was neither acquitted nor convicted of the death penalty in his first trial, the Double Jeopardy Clause was not offended by a retrial to determine whether death was the appropriate punishment for his offenses. There is no need to say more.
Dissenting Opinion
with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.
This case concerns the events that “terminat[e] jeopardy” for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. Richardson v. United States,
When a Pennsylvania capital jury deadlocks at the sentencing stage of a proceeding, state law requires the trial court to enter a judgment imposing a life sentence. See Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 42, § 9711(e)(1)(v) (Purdon Supp. 2002). Ordinarily, a judgment thus imposed is final. The government may neither appeal the sentence nor retry the sentencing question before a second jury. See Brief for Petitioner 7; Tr. of Oral Arg. 26. The sentencing question can be retried — if retrial is not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause — only if the defendant successfully appeals the underlying conviction and is convicted again on retrial.
In no prior case have we decided whether jeopardy is terminated by the entry of a state-mandated sentence when the jury has deadlocked on the sentencing question. As I see it, the question is genuinely debatable, with tenable argument supporting each side. Comprehending our double jeopardy decisions in light of the underlying purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause, I conclude that jeopardy does terminate in such circumstances. I would hold, as herein explained, that once the trial court entered a final judgment of life for Satta-zahn, the Double Jeopardy Clause barred Pennsylvania from seeking the death penalty a second time.
The first category — mistrials—is instructive, although the case at hand does not fit within that category. In deciding whether reprosecution is permissible after a mistrial, “this Court has balanced the valued right of a defendant to have his trial completed by the particular tribunal summoned to sit in judgment on him against the public interest in insuring
The second category described in Scott — “termination of [a] trial in [a defendant’s] favor before any determination of factual guilt or innocence,” id., at 94 — is distinguished from the first based on the quality of finality a termination order imports. “When a trial court declares a mistrial, it all but invariably contemplates that the prosecutor will be permitted to proceed anew notwithstanding the defendant’s plea of double jeopardy.” Id., at 92. When a motion to terminate is granted, in contrast, the trial court “obviously contemplates that the proceedings will terminate then and there in favor of the defendant.” Id., at 94. In Scott, for example, the trial court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss one count of the indictment, prior to its submission to the jury, on the ground of preindictment delay. If the prosecution had wanted to “reinstate the proceedings in the face of such a ruling,” it could not simply have refiled the indictment; in
Sattazahn’s case falls within Scott’s second category. After the jury deadlocked at the sentencing stage, no mistrial was declared, for Pennsylvania law provided that the trial proceedings would terminate “then and there” in Sattazahn’s favor. The government could not simply retry the sentencing issue at will. The hung jury in Sattazahn’s case did not “mak[e] . . . completion” of the first proceeding “impossible,” Wade v. Hunter,
Double jeopardy law with respect to Scott’s second category is relatively undeveloped. As observed at the outset, see supra, at 119, we have never before decided whether jeopardy terminates upon the entry of a state-mandated final judgment favorable to a defendant after a jury deadlocks. We have, however, addressed the termination of a trial prior to submission of the case to the jury. Scott was such a case and, as the Court underscores, ante, at 114, that decision denied double jeopardy protection. In allowing a second prosecution in Scott, however, the Court stressed that the defendant “deliberately ch[ose] to seek termination of the proceedings against him on a basis unrelated to factual guilt or innocence,” i. e., the prosecution’s preindictment delay,
The ruling in Scott placing the defendant in that case outside the zone of double jeopardy protection, in sum, was tied to the absence of a completed first trial episode and to the defendant’s choice to abort the initial trial proceedings. “[T]he Government,” we explained, “was quite willing to continue with its production of evidence .. ., but the defendant elected to seek termination of the trial on grounds unrelated to guilt or innocence.”
II
Scott, it is true, did not home in on a case like Sattazahn s. The Court’s reasoning, nevertheless, lends credence to the view that a trial-terminating judgment for life, not prompted by a procedural move on the defendant’s part, creates a legal entitlement protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Cf. Rumsey,
Moreover — and discrete from the Court’s analysis in Scott — the perils against which the Double Jeopardy Clause seeks to protect are plainly implicated by the prospect of a second capital sentencing proceeding. A determination that defendants in Sattazahn’s position are subject to the “ordeal” of a second full-blown life or death trial “compelfs] [them] to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity.” Green,
Despite the attendant generation of anxiety and insecurity, we have allowed retrial after hung jury mistrials in order to give the State “one complete opportunity to convict those who have violated its laws.” Washington,
I recognize that this is a novel and close question: Satta-zahn was not “acquitted” of the death penalty, but his case was fully tried and the court, on its own motion, entered a final judgment — a life sentence — terminating the trial proceedings. I would decide the double jeopardy issue in Satta-zahn’s favor, for the reasons herein stated, and giving weight to two ultimate considerations. First, the Court’s holding confronts defendants with a perilous choice, one we have previously declined to impose in other circumstances. See Green,
Second, the punishment Sattazahn again faced on retrial was death, a penalty “unique in both its severity and its finality.” Monge v. California,
When a typical criminal jury is unable to agree on a verdict, in contrast, the judge declares a mistrial and the prosecutor has the immediate right to reprosecute the counts on which the jury hung. See, e. g., Rich
The Court has many times said that the Double Jeopardy Clause protects the integrity of “final judgments.”. See, e. g., Crist v. Bretz,
When this Court has considered dismissals of indictments that contemplate the possibility of immediate reprosecution without an appeal, it has analyzed them as mistrials. See Lee v. United States,
The Court identifies policy reasons why a legislature might prefer to provide for the entry of a judgment that could be reopened should the defendant mount a successful appeal. See ante, at 110, 115. It does not automatically follow, however, that such a provisional judgment would be compatible with the Double Jeopardy Clause. Cf. infra, at 127 (urging that the prospect of a second death penalty proceeding heightens double jeopardy concerns).
The governing statute provides that “the court may, in its discretion, discharge the jury if it is of the opinion that further deliberation will not result in a unanimous agreement as to the sentence, in which case the court shall sentence the defendant to life imprisonment.” Pa. Stat. Aim., Tit. 42, §9711(e)(1)(v) (Purdon Supp. 2002). In Sattazahn’s case, after the jury had deliberated for about 3Vfc hours, the judge announced that he had “received a communication from the foreperson indicating this jury is hopelessly deadlocked.” App. 22. He then stated: “I will bring the jury down and inquire of the foreperson and the jury whether or not any further deliberations would be productive.” Ibid. Only at that point did Sattazahn move “that the jury be discharged” and that a life sentence be entered under § 9711(e)(1)(v). Ibid. The judge did not grant Sattazahn’s motion. Instead, he conducted an inquiry to determine whether the jury was “hopelessly deadlocked”; he then found that it was, discharged the jury, and announced that “by virtue of the law” he would enter a life sentence. Id., at 23-24. The judge, at that stage, never referred back to Sattazahn’s motion. As I read this record, the judge’s decision to conduct an inquiry, discharge the jury, and enter a life sentence was prompted not by a defensive motion, but simply by the jury’s announcement that it was deadlocked, just as the statute instructs.
We have also held that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar imposition of a greater sentence on retrial if a defendant successfully appeals a conviction. See, e. g., North Carolina v. Pearce,