Cite as: 507 U. S. 234 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
petitioner to a prison term of 15 years and 8 months, to be followed by a 5-year period of supervised release.8 Petitioner filed a timely appeal from that final judgment.9
On appeal, petitioner argued that the same insufficiency of the evidence rationale underlying reversal of his codefendant's conviction should apply in his case, because precisely the same evidence was admitted against the two defendants. Without addressing the merits of this contention, the Government moved to dismiss the appeal. The Government's motion was based entirely on the fact that petitioner had become a fugitive after his conviction and before his initial sentencing, so that "[u]nder the holding in Holmes, he cannot now challenge his 1989 conviction for conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute cocaine." 10 In a per curiam
order, the Court of Appeals granted the motion to dismiss.
II
It has been settled for well over a century that an appellate court may dismiss the appeal of a defendant who is a fugitive from justice during the pendency of his appeal. The Supreme Court applied this rule for the first time in Smith v. United States, 94 U. S. 97 (1876), to an escaped defendant who remained at large when his petition arose before the Court. Under these circumstances, the Court explained, there could be no assurance that any judgment it issued
8 Id., at 51-56.
9 Id., at 57. This sequence of events makes petitioner's case somewhat unusual. Had the District Court denied petitioner's motion for resentencing, petitioner would have been barred by applicable time limits from appealing his initial sentence and judgment. Petitioner was able to file a timely appeal only because the District Court granted his motion to resentence. Entry of the second sentence and judgment, from which petitioner noticed his appeal, is treated as the relevant "sentencing" for purposes of this opinion. We have no occasion here to comment on the propriety of either the District Court's initial decision to sentence in absentia, or its subsequent decision to resentence.
10 Id., at 70-71.
239
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