Vindictiveness in Bucks County cases
Pearce is not limited to situations involving resentencing after a second trial, but it may also apply to resentencings produced by appeals or by collateral attaches. The Pearce Court established, subject to certain exceptions, a presumption that an increase in sentence is the product of an improper motive on the part of the sentencing authority. The presumption does not apply in the abesnece of a reasonable likelihood that the increase in sentence was the product of actual vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing authority.
The State contended that the sentences imposed upon defendants were not unconstitutional. The Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court's decisions. The constitutional guarantee against multiple punishments for the same offense required that punishment already exacted had to be fully "credited" in imposing sentence upon a new conviction for the same offense. Neither the double jeopardy provision of the Constitution nor the Equal Protection Clause imposed an absolute bar to a more severe sentence upon a defendant's reconviction. However, due process of law required that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction had to play no part in the sentence he received after a new trial. Due process also required that a defendant be freed of apprehension of such a retaliatory motivation on the part of the sentencing judge. The State failed to offer adequate reasons to impose increased sentences upon defendants. North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711 (U.S. 1969)
The constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy imposes no limitations whatever upon the power to retry a defendant who has succeeded in getting his first conviction set aside. The principle that this provision does not preclude the government's retrying a defendant whose conviction is set aside because of an error in the proceedings leading to conviction is a well-established part of the United States' constitutional jurisprudence. A corollary of the power to retry a defendant is the power, upon the defendant's reconviction, to impose whatever sentence may be legally authorized, whether or not it is greater than the sentence imposed after the first conviction. That a defendant's conviction is overturned on collateral rather than direct attack is irrelevant for these purposes.
In Bucks County cases and for Bucks County criminal attorneys, the case of Walker is important:
Defendant was convicted of possessing an instrument of crime, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, unlawful restraint, and criminal trespass, in violation of 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. §§ 907(b), 2701(a)(1), 2705, 2902, and 3503(a)(1) (1983)and sentenced accordingly. At a post conviction hearing act, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. §§9541-9551 (1982), proceeding the trial court increased defendant's sentence with regard to the offense of criminal trespass. Defendant filed a motion to modify the new sentence that was denied. He then filed a timely notice of appeal. Defendant challenged the legality of his new sentence under the due process and double jeopardy clauses in U.S. Const. amend. VI and XIV. The court concluded that where a trial court responded to a defendant's motion to vacate a sentence by increasing the severity of the aggregate sentence, the use of the presumption of vindictiveness was clearly warranted. Defendant also argued that the trial court violated the double jeopardy clause of U.S. Const. Amend V, but the court found that this claim was without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence. Commonwealth v. Walker, 390 Pa. Super. 76 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1989)