MICHIGAN
v.
PAYNE.
Supreme Court of United States.
John A. Smietanka argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General of Michigan, Robert A. Derengoski, Solicitor General, and Ronald J. Taylor.
James R. Neuhard argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Arthur J. Tarnow.
MR. JUSTICE POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court.
A writ of certiorari was granted in this case,
I
Respondent, Leroy Payne, pleaded guilty in a county circuit court in Michigan to a charge of assault with intent to commit murder in connection with an armed *48 attack upon two sheriff's deputies. In March 1963 he was sentenced to a prison term of from 19 to 40 years. Several years later, respondent's conviction and sentence were set aside when a hearing, ordered by the Michigan Court of Appeals, disclosed that his confession and subsequent guilty plea were involuntary. Following a retrial, at which he exercised his rights to trial by jury and to plead innocent, respondent again was found guilty on the same assault charge. On August 30, 1967, he was resentenced to prison from 25 to 50 years with full credit for all time served under the prior sentence. During the resentencing hearing, the judge explained that the higher sentence was "based on the nature of the crime and on the impressions which I formed of [respondent] and of the crime."
Respondent appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which affirmed his conviction and approved the higher sentence.
*49 The Michigan Supreme Court, in a 4-to-3 decision, upheld the conviction but rejected the higher sentence as violative of the due process restrictions established in North Carolina v. Pearce, supra.
*50 II
In Pearce, the Court emphasized that "[i]t can hardly be doubted" that, while "there exists no absolute constitutional bar to the imposition of a more severe sentence upon retrial," it would be entirely impermissible for judges to render harsher penalties as punishment for those defendants who have succeeded in getting their convictions reversed.
The dispute in this case centers, instead, around the "prophylactic"[4] limitations Pearce established to guard against the possibility of vindictiveness in the resentencing process. Those limitations, applicable "whenever a judge imposes a more severe sentence upon a defendant after a new trial,"
The contours of the retroactivity inquiry have been clearly delineated in numerous decisions over the last decade. The test utilized repeatedly by this Court to ascertain whether "new" constitutional protections in the area of criminal procedure are to be applied retroactively calls for the consideration of three criteria: "(a) the purpose to be served by the new standards, (b) the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards, and (c) the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards." Stovall v. Denno,
The two purposes for the resentencing restrictions imposed by Pearce were to ensure (i) "that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction . . . [would] play no part in the sentence *52 he receives after a new trial . . ." and (ii) that apprehension of such vindictiveness would not "deter a defendant's exercise of the right to appeal or collaterally attack his first conviction. . . ."
The first-articulated purpose of the Pearce rulesto protect against the possibility that actual vindictiveness will infect a resentencing proceedingdeserves closer scrutiny. Unlike the purposes underlying many of the decisions heretofore accorded retrospective application,[6] this purpose does not implicate the " `fair determination' of . . . guilt or innocence." Roberts v. Russell,
It is an inherent attribute of prophylactic constitutional rules, such as those established in Miranda and Pearce, that their retrospective application will occasion windfall benefits for some defendants who have suffered no constitutional deprivation. Miranda's well-known warning requirements provided a protection "against the possibility of unreliable statements in every instance of in-custody interrogation," and thereby covered many "situations in which the danger [was] not necessarily as great as when the accused is subjected to overt and obvious coercion." Johnson v. New Jersey, supra, at 730 (emphasis supplied). Thus, had Miranda been applied retroactively, it would have required the reversal of many convictions in which no serious constitutional violation had occurred. Id., at 731. Likewise, the retroactive application of Pearce would require the repudiation *54 of many sentences rendered under circumstances in which there was no genuine possibility that vindictiveness played a role. Judicial impropriety in the resentencing process, albeit intolerable wherever it happens, surely is not a common practice. Indeed, nothing in Pearce intimates that the Court regarded it as anything more than an infrequently appearing blemish on the sentencing process.[7] Absent countervailing considerations rooted in the purposes underlying a new rule, this factorthat retroactive application of such broadly protective rules would occasion reversals in many instances in which no actual prejudice has been sufferedpoints toward a ruling of prospectivity.
Nonretroactivity is also suggested by the second similarity between Miranda and Pearce. While each created a protective umbrella serving to enhance a constitutional guarantee, neither conferred a constitutional right that had not existed prior to those decisions. The right against use of an involuntary confession long preceded Miranda just as the right to be free from fundamentally unfair sentencing considerations predated Pearce. Supra, at 50. Because these foundational rights remain available to defendants in pre-Miranda and pre-Pearce cases, a decision of nonretroactivity is less likely to result in the continued incarceration of those whose convictions or sentences rest on unconstitutional acts.[8]Linkletter v. Walker,
*55 Of course, the question of the impact of particular decisions on the reliability and fairness of any aspect of a criminal proceeding is inherently a matter of balancing "probabilities." Johnson v. New Jersey,
Although the remaining factorsreliance and burden on the administration of justicehave been regarded as having controlling significance "only when the purpose of the rule in question did not clearly favor either retroactivity or prospectivity," Desist v. United States,
Because of that reliance, it is fair to assume that in prior years few, if any, judges complied during resentencing with Pearce's recordation requirement, and that they often considered a variety of factors relating to the defendant and his crime which might or might not have fallen within the Pearce standard. We have been presented with no statistical indications as to how many persons received increased penalties after retrials.[13] We cannot say, however, that the potential interference with the administration of justice would be insubstantial if Pearce were applied retroactively. In order to comply with Pearce, a resentencing judgeassuming he is still on the bench or otherwise availablewould be required to make a factual determination as to the reasons for sentences he may have meted out years in the past. *57 Compliance with that requirement would present considerable difficulties, since judges, like witnesses in criminal trials, lack infallible memories and perfect records of their motivations.[14]Linkletter v. Walker,
III
Since the resentencing hearing in this case took place approximately two years before Pearce was decided, we hold that the Michigan Supreme Court erred in applying its proscriptions here. Accordingly, the judgment of that court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
*58 MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.
We deal here with the guarantee contained in the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the States by reason of the Fourteenth, Benton v. Maryland,
The Double Jeopardy Clause in my view was designed to discourage the abusive use by the Executive and Judicial Branches of the awesome power of government over the individual. Jeopardy attaches once the trial starts. If there is error in that trial and as a result a new trial is had, the Government cannot impose an added or increased sentence on the second trial. That is my view, as explained in North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, at 726-737. Respondent received a sentence of 19 to 40 years on his first trial and a greater one of 25 to 50 years on his second trial. I therefore would affirm the judgment below.
*59 MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, dissenting.
The Court today holds that no limitations need be placed on resentencings that occurred before the date of decision in North Carolina v. Pearce,
I
This case raises the issue of retroactivity only because of the almost unbelievable sluggishness of the appellate process in Michigan. Payne's second sentence was imposed on August 30, 1967, nearly two years before Pearce was decided. However, the Michigan Court of Appeals did not decide Payne's appeal until July 28, 1969, one month after the decision in Pearce. The Michigan Supreme Court considered the case for two more years, finally deciding it on November 9, 1971. Had the appellate process in Michigan been at all expeditious, this Court might have used Payne's case as the vehicle to decide *60 that harsher sentences on reconviction could be justified only by objective evidence of post-sentencing conduct by the defendant, the rule adopted in Pearce. The only difference between Pearce's case and Payne's, then, is that the former moved up to this Court more quickly than the latter. Different treatment of two cases is justified under our Constitution only when the cases differ in some respect relevant to the different treatment.[2] And a difference in the speed with which a judicial system disposes of an appeal is not related in any way to the purposes served by the limitations that Pearce placed on resentencing. Thus, considerations of fairness rooted in the Constitution lead me to conclude that cases in the pipeline when a new constitutional rule is announced must be given the benefit of that rule.
The rule adopted by the Court today is curious in another way. The Court appears to say that a defendant who failed to appeal his first conviction out of "a reasonably based fear of actual vindictiveness," ante, at 52 n. 5, is entitled to review of his conviction. Cf. Fay v. Noia,
II
The Court applies the now-familiar three-pronged test to determine whether Pearce should be given retroactive effect, and it reaches the now-familiar result of nonretroactivity.[4] I believe that principled adjudication requires the Court to abandon the charade of carefully balancing countervailing considerations when deciding the question of retroactivity. Inspecting the cases dealing with retroactivity, I find that they appear to fall into three groups. In some cases, this Court has held that the trial court lacked jurisdiction in the traditional sense. See, e. g., Benton v. Maryland,
I confess that I have been unable to discover a principled basis for that threefold classification, but it does appear to be the factor operating in our cases. And I see little point in forcing lower courts to flounder without substantial guidance in the morass of our cases, by informing them that they are to apply a balancing test, when in fact it invariably occurs that the balancing test results in holdings of nonretroactivity. Furthermore, it demeans this Court to pretend to consider a variety of factors if, no matter how those factors are arrayed, the result is predetermined. An open-minded examination of this Court's cases on retroactivity compels the conclusion that the Court divides cases into several classes, and it is the classification, not the three-pronged test, that determines the result. Our time would be better spent, I think, in attempting to delineate the basis for those classifications, and to derive them from some constitutional principles, rather than in "applying" a balancing test. Indeed, it might have been thought that *63 Robinson v. Neil, supra, had begun the task of rationalizing our cases, but apparently that is not so.
III
The holding of Pearce is a simple one: the Due Process Clause requires States to adopt procedures designed to minimize the possibility that a new sentence after a successful appeal will be based in part on vindictiveness for the defendant's having taken the appeal. The Court agrees that "this basic due process protection . . . is available equally to defendants resentenced before and after the date of decision in that case." Ante, at 50, 51. The question then is what procedures are required to insure that that protection has been afforded defendants resentenced before Pearce was decided. This question, like many of those involving retroactivity, relates to the integrity of the judicial process, not to the limitations placed by the Constitution on police behavior. One can agree that the precise requirements of Pearce are inappropriate for retrospective application, largely because they are procedurally ill-adapted to the problem, yet disagree with the Court that the States need do nothing at all to convince a reviewing court that vindictiveness played no part in the resentencing. See e. g., Commonwealth v. Allen,
The issue need not be framed as the "retroactivity" of Pearce. The problem, as I see it, is to devise procedures that will permit reviewing courts to determine whether the requirements of the Due Process Clause have been met. In Pearce we concluded that it would be enough for a judge, on resentencing a defendant, to state his reasons for imposing a more severe sentence. If the more severe sentence was based upon objective information, placed on the record, concerning the conduct of the *64 defendant after the first sentencing, the more severe sentence was permissible. Such a rule, although not absolutely guaranteeing that vindictiveness will play no part,[6] nonetheless substantially reduces the possibility that it will, without significantly interfering with the judge's lawful discretion.
A rather similar procedure would accomplish the same result for defendants resentenced before Pearce was decided. If a defendant did receive a harsher sentence after a successful appeal, and he seeks to have it reduced to the original sentence, the State should be required to present evidence that the new sentence was based on post-sentence conduct. In the absence of such evidence, the sentence must be reduced.[7] The Court suggests that such a procedure would "occasion windfall benefits for some defendants who have suffered no constitutional deprivation." Ante, at 53. That assertion must be considered more closely.
As the Court notes, there is little evidence that more severe sentences are often imposed. It cites an informal survey suggesting that 12% of reconvicted defendants receive higher sentences. Ante, at 56 n. 13. Even if that estimate is only half as large as the actual figure for pre-Pearce cases, still there are clearly very few defendants who have received harsher sentences. With respect *65 to many of them, it will not be difficult to produce evidence supporting the new sentence. As in Moon v. Maryland,
Thus, I do not think that it can fairly be said that the requirements I would impose would in fact result in windfall benefits to "innumerable" defendants, ante, at 55; they would accrue to those few defendants who were convicted, successfully appealed, were reconvicted, and received harsher sentences so long ago that the State cannot produce evidence from which a reviewing court could find that vindictiveness played no part in the sentencing decision.[8] And the "windfall benefits" would impair no substantial state interest in incarcerating those few offenders. Unlike the suppression of probative evidence that might severely limit the State's ability to secure a conviction of a person who undoubtedly committed an offense, here the remedy is simply the reduction of sentence. North Carolina v. Rice,
For these reasons, I dissent.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins Part III of this opinion.
NOTES
[1] In his affidavit, the second sentencing judge indicated that a different judge who presided over respondent's prior guilty plea and sentencing hearings did not have as good an opportunity to become fully informed of the details of the "deliberate, cold-blooded attack." In a subsequent amendatory affidavit filed by the same judge, he corrected his prior affidavit by stating that the first judge did have "some limited opportunity to see and hear [respondent] when he testified as a witness for the prosecution against his accomplice" in a separate trial. The parties in this case now agree that the first judge did preside over the trial of respondent's codefendant before sentencing respondent and that respondent did testify at that trial. The parties continue, however, to dispute whether that opportunity was as complete as the opportunity afforded the second judge, and, if not, whether this is a permissible consideration in resentencing under Pearce. Because of the manner in which we dispose of this case, we need not resolve this controversy. See n. 3, infra.
[2] This Court has twice previously granted certiorari to resolve this question, but on each occasion the writ was dismissed as improvidently granted. Moon v. Maryland,
[3] This Court has consistently declined to reach out to resolve unsettled questions regarding the scope or meaning of decisions establishing "new" constitutional requirements in cases in which it holds any such decisions nonretroactive. See Stovall v. Denno,
[4] Chaffin v. Stynchcombe, ante, at 25; Colten v. Kentucky,
[5] This is not to suggest, of course, that there may not be specific cases in which a convicted defendant might show that his initial waiver of his right to appeal was involuntary because caused by a reasonably based fear of actual vindictiveness on the part of a particular judge. Cf. North Carolina v. Pearce,
[6] See, e. g., In re Winship,
[7] The most that may be said is that the Court in Pearce found that "increased sentences on reconviction are far from rare,"
[8] See Johnson v. New Jersey,
[9] Of course, it remains true that "retaliatory motivation" may be "difficult to prove in any individual case." North Carolina v. Pearce,
Notes
[10] We reiterate here what the Court has repeatedly said in retroactivity cases: "[W]e do not disparage a constitutional guarantee in any manner by declining to apply it retroactively." Johnson v. New Jersey,
[11] Compare Berger v. California,
[12] We need not disagree with MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL'S notation, post, at 66 n. 9, that the result in Pearce was foreshadowed, i. e., that higher sentences on retrial were being questioned. Our focus here, however, is on the prophylactic measure adopted to achieve that result. As to this, we do not think there is any serious question that neither the recordation requirement nor the limitations on matters to be considered were so clearly forecast as to render a contrary state reliance unjustifiable.
[13] See Note, Constitutional Law: Increased Sentence and Denial of Credit on Retrial Sustained under Traditional Waiver Theory, 1965 Duke L. J. 395, 399 n. 25 (informal survey of North Carolina courts showed that six of 50 reconvicted defendants received higher sentences).
[14] Thus, the retroactivity of Pearce would present difficulties not encountered in two of the Court's recent decisions holding retroactive cases involving resentencing: Furman v. Georgia,
[15] Respondent, relying on Linkletter v. Walker, supra, and Tehan v. Shott,
[1] The State did present an affidavit from the sentencing judge in this case. the Michigan Supreme Court held that it did not satisfy the requirement of North Carolina v. Pearce,
[2] Since Payne's appeal was pending when Pearce was decided, I need not consider whether different considerations, such as the defendant's failure to raise the issue in seeking review from this Court or to persuade us on the merits, might suffice under the Due Process Clause to justify different treatment of defendants whose sentences had become final.
[3] Mr. Justice Harlan, dissenting in Fay v. Noia,
[4] In holding various rulings retroactive, this Court has given only the most cursory nod to the three-pronged test. See, e. g., Roberts v. Russell,
[5] Linkletter v. Walker,
[6] For example, the sentencing judge, had he considered the case as an initial matter, might have imposed a sentence shorter than that imposed at the first trial, but, out of vindictiveness, he might decide to reimpose the original sentence. The procedures outlined in Pearce cannot prevent this.
[7] I assume that the Court's reliance on the continuing availability of the "foundational" right means that an offender who shows that vindictiveness played a part in his resentencing is entitled to relief. I would simply shift the burden of proof to the State, which has better access to the relevant facts.
[8] State courts, closer to the problems of administering the rule I suggest, have widely though that those burdens are not substantial. See, e. g., Stonom v. Wainwright,
[9] The Court's conclusion that Pearce was not foreshadowed by decisions in this Court or by a trend of lower court decisions is somewhat misleading. This Court's decision in Green v. United States,
