Agаin we venture into the fen of legal analysis spawned by the Double Jeopardy Clause.
1
Today we reconsider whether it violates the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy for a trial judge at resentencing to increase a defendant’s sentence on one count when the defendant’s sentence on another, related charge, has been vacated on appeal. When we first addressed this narrow question, we held that а trial judge was only limited in resen-tencing a defendant by the combined duration of the sentences imposed before appeal.
Davis v. State,
Del.Supr.,
In light of these recent pronouncements, we abandon the holding of Hunter and readopt the rule originally announced in Davis. 2 We hold that the trial court’s re-sentencing after a related charge was vacated on appeal did not violate the constitutional prohibition against dоuble jeopardy because the appellant had no legitimate expectation of finality in his sentence. Neither did the trial court deprive the appellant of his constitutional right of due process. Accordingly, we affirm the resen-tencing.
I.
George E. White robbed a bank on May 13, 1986. He was subsequently convicted by a jury in Superior Court on charges of first degree robbery, possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony, and second degree conspiracy. On August 14, 1987, White was sentenced to fifteen years on the robbery charge, and to five years each on the weapons and conspiracy offenses. The first eight years of his sentence (three for the robbery and five for the weapons offense) were mandatory.
On appeal, we vacated the conviction and five-year mandatory sentence for the weapons charge, but affirmed the other convictions and sentences against White.
White v. State,
Del.Supr.,
On August 5, 1988, White appeared beforе the Superior Court for resentencing. The trial judge vacated the weapons conviction and left the conspiracy sentenced unchanged, but he also increased the term of the robbery sentence from fifteen to twenty years. The judge then stated:
When I sentence somebody, I take into consideration the entire nature of the offense and then determine what would be the appropriate sentence, for that conduct, and depending upon the nature of the charges, apportion it among those charges.
I sentenced the defendant [White] for robbery first degree, possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony and conspiracy. At that time I determined that a twenty-five year sentence was appropriate, fifteen years for the robbery, knowing that the first three years was a minimum-mandatory sentence; five years for the weapon, knowing that it was a minimum-mandatory sentence; and five years for conspiracy. The Supreme Court [in LeCompte ] ... said I ha[d] to dispose of possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony. I feel that I have the power and the jurisdiction to increase the robbery sentence.
Transcript of Resentencing, at 3-4 (Aug. 5, 1988). Thus, after resentencing, White’s total term of imprisonment remained twenty-five years, although the length of his mandatory incarceration was reduсed from eight to three years.
*1324 II.
The parties concede that the arguments raised on appeal were not presented to the Superior Court. This Court generally declines to review questions not fairly presented to the trial court except when the interests of justice so require. Del.Supr.Ct.R. 8.
See also Wainwright v. State,
Del.Supr.,
White generally contends that the trial court committed plain error in resentencing him to an additional five years for robbery after we had ordered his five-year weapons sentence vacated. White first argues that the increase in his robbery sentence violates the rule against double jeopardy established in
Hunter v. State.
According to White,
Hunter
established a firm rule that a defendant’s sentence may never be increased after he begins to serve it.
The State maintains that none of White’s constitutional rights were violated and urges us to affirm White’s resentencing. With respect to White’s double jeopardy claim, the State contends that a trial judge is entitled to reinstate his original sentencing plan when it is disturbed on appeal. As to Hunter, the State claims that recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court have upset Hunter’s rationale, and urges us to reinstate the rule for resen-tencing announced in Davis v. State. As to White’s claim that he was denied due process of law, the State notes that Lundien, the primary case cited by White, does not prevent trial judges from enhancing sentences in all cases, but only prohibits vindictive resentencing. Since the record contains no evidence of impropriety or vindictiveness, the State argues that Lundien is inapplicable. We address the two issues raised by the parties in turn.
III.
The Double Jeopardy Clause, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that no person “shall ... be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” U.S. Const, amend. V. See also Del. Const, art I, § 8. 3 The United States Supreme Court has described the rationale underlying the Clause as follows:
The constitutional prohibition against 'double jeopardy’ was designed to protect an individual from being subjected to the hazards of trial and possible conviction more than once for an alleged offense. ... The underlying idea, one that is deeply ingrained in at least the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence, is *1325 that the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.
DiFrancesco,
One of the earliest cases to discuss the question of double jeopardy for multiple punishments was
Ex parte Lange,
In comparison to recent cases,
Lange
was factually unremarkable. Its prominence as a double jeopardy casе arose from subsequent judicial extrapolations of its holding. In
United States v. Benz,
Beginning in 1947, the Supreme Court began to retreat from the
Lange-Benz
line of cases. In
Bozza v. United States,
In recent decisions, the Supreme Cоurt has signalled a complete abandonment of the
Lange-Benz
rational.
See Goldhammer,
The legal analysis employed in
DiFrancesco
significantly altered the judicial approach to double jeopardy resentencing cases.
6
Prior to
DiFrancesco,
courts generally disfavored resentencing because of the potential for abuse. Most decisions tipped the balance in favor of defendants.
See
Note, at 343, nn. 6 & 7. After
DiFrancesco,
it appears that the mere potential for abuse is not enough; a defendant must have a legitimate expectation of finality in his original sentence. Note, at 345.
See also DiFrancesco,
With this background, we now consider our own decisions. In
Davis v. State,
this Court determined that a defendant charged with attempted robbery at knifepoint could not be sentenced to consecutive prison terms under then-existing criminal statutes for both attempted first-degree robbery and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony.
One year later in Hunter v. State, the Court reconsidered Davis. Although it reaffirmed Davis’ principal holding, its rule with respect to resentencing was overturned. 7 Reasoning that Pearce was factually and legally distinguishable, the Court followed the rule of other federal and state courts prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in DiFrancesco. It stated:
The proper rule to apply is the one which prohibits increasing a sentence after a defendant has commenced to serve it. In United States v. Turner, 7 Cir.,518 F.2d 14 (1975), the Court said:
“The law is well settled that increasing a sentence after the defendant has commenced to serve it is a violation of the constitutional guaranty against double jeopardy, [citations omitted]”
Compare Chandler v. United States, 5 Cir.,468 F.2d 834 (1972); United States v. Welty, 3 Cir.,426 F.2d 615 (1970); United States v. Adams, 6 Cir.,362 F.2d 210 (1966); Commonwealth v. Brown,455 Pa. 274 ,314 A.2d 506 (1974); 4 Wharton’s Criminal Procedure (12 ed.) § 611.
Thus, any post-appeal sentence imposed in a Davis -type case may not exceed the sentence originally imposed for the conviction which remains, if the defendant has begun to serve the sentence. Any ruling to the contrary in the Davis opinion is abandoned.
Hunter,
As the foregoing analysis makes clear,
Hunter’s,
resentencing rule is no longer consistent with the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, or the decisions of federal and state courts which it cited.
Hunter
adopted the rationale of the
Lange-Benz
line of cases which the United States Supreme Court abandoned in
DiFrancesco
and
Goldhammer.
The supporting eases cited in
Hunter,
including decisions in the United States Courts of
*1328
Appeal for the Seventh, Fifth, and Third Circuits and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, have similarly been abandoned.
See Bentley,
We thus abandon Hunter's rule of double jeopardy for resentencing, and return to the limitation stated in Davis 8 After a related sentence has been vacated on appeal, a trial judge may resentence a defendant up to the combined duration of the original sentences without violating the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. 9 Under these circumstances, when the defendant challenged his robbery and weapons convictions on double jeopardy grounds, he had no legitimate expectation of finality in his original sentence. The counts were completely interdependent, as White’s own appeal on double jeopardy grounds makes clear. Moreover, the transcript of resentencing reflects the trial judge’s concern about his original sentencing plan.
White’s lack of any legitimate expectation of finality in his sentence arises from this Court’s prior decision in
Hunter v. State. Hunter
was decided under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution. The only reference in
Hunter
to Delaware’s Double Jeopardy Clause was contained in a footnote which stated: “Because of the construction we have placed on the federal constitutional provisions ... we need not decide the scope of [the Delaware] provisions at this time.”
Id.
at 130. When the United States Supreme Court subsequently altered its legal analysis of the Double Jeopardy Clause in
DiFrancesco,
it abandoned the rationale supporting
Hunter.
That fact was emphasized by decisions in both federal and state courts which overruled cases this Court relied on in
Hunter.
Since
DiFrancesco
and almost all of the other decisions were issued
before
White robbed the bank, White must be charged with knowledge of these significant changes in the law.
Cf. DiFrancesco,
IV.
White also contends that his resentencing violates principles of fairness under the Due Process Clause. He relies primarily upon
United States v. Lundien,
where the court declared that “there must be some limitation on the power of the trial court to enhance punishment by resentencing after the Defendant’s commencement of service.”
Due process imposes some limitations on a judge at resentencing after an appeal. In Pearce, the Supreme Court stated:
Due process of law ... requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he received after a new trial ...
In order to assure the absence of such a motivation, we have concluded that whеnever a judge imposes a more severe sentence upon a defendant after a new trial, the reasons for doing so must af *1329 firmatively appear. Those reasons must be based upon objective information concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the time of the original sentencing proceeding.
Pearce,
V.
In conclusion, we find that the trial court neither subjected White to double jeopardy nor denied him due process when it decided to resentence him to twenty years for robbery after his weapons sentence had been vacated on appeal. The constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy is not implicated when a defendant charged with multiple crimes successfully appeals a conviction on double jeopardy grounds and the trial court resentences the defendant within the combined duration of the original sentences imposed. Under these circumstances White had no legitimate expectation of finality in his original sentence. Similarly, because the new sentence did not exceed the original sentence imposed, there is no presumption of vindictiveness and no due process violation.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Superi- or Court, sentencing the appellant to twenty years for robbery and five years for conspiracy is AFFIRMED.
Notes
. Chief Justice Rehnquist once said of the Double Jeopardy Clause and its jurisprudence: "[Tjhis guarantee seems both one of the least understood and, in recent years, one of the most frequently litigated provisions of the Bill of Rights. This Court has done little to alleviate the confusion, and our opinions, including ones authored by me are replete with
mea culpa’s
occasioned by shifts in assumptions and emphasis.”
Whalen v. United States,
. This opinion reinstates only that portion of
Davis
addressing the problem of double jeopardy in resentencing. Specifically,
Davis
held that "[a]t resentencing, the Trial Judge will not be limited to the mandatory minimum sentence imposed initially for the attempted robbery conviction, but the sentence may not exceed the combined duration of the two terms imposed before this appeal.”
Davis,
. The language of the Delaware Constitution parallels the federal provision. It provides: "[N]o person shall be for the same offense twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ...” Del. Const, art. I, § 8. Although we have previously observed that the federal and state double jeopardy provisions are similar, we have not yet been required to determine whether they are identical in scope in all respects.
See Evans v. State,
Del.Supr.,
. The Court noted that although a more severe sentence after reconviction may survive double jeopardy analysis, it must also withstand scrutiny under the Due Process Clause.
See Pearce,
. Alternatively, the Court framed the question as whether the imposition of a sentence should be deemed the implied acquittal of any greater sentence.
Id.
. Nothing in recent Supreme Court decisions involving double jeopardy claims alters the analytical approach employed in
DiFrancesco. See Grady v. Corbin,
— U.S. -,
. The primary ruling in both
Davis
and
Hunter
was subsequently vacated by the United States Supreme Court and modified on remand.
Hunter v. State,
. We see no basis here for expanding Delaware's Double Jeopardy Clause to support Hunter 's resentencing rule, and thus follow the rationale applicable to the federal constitutional provision.
. This rule is subject, of course, to the further limitation that no sentence may exceed the limits set by statute as to the surviving conviction or convictions.
