102
Syllabus
(b) Double-jeopardy protections were not triggered when the jury deadlocked at petitioner's first sentencing proceeding and the court prescribed a life sentence pursuant to Pennsylvania law. The jury in that first proceeding was deadlocked and made no findings with respect to the alleged aggravating circumstance. That result, or nonresult, cannot fairly be called an acquittal, based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to a life sentence. Neither was the entry of a life sentence by the judge an "acquittal." Under Pennsylvania's scheme, a judge has no discretion to fashion a sentence once he finds the jury is deadlocked, and he makes no findings and resolves no factual matters. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court also made no finding that the Pennsylvania Legislature intended the statutorily required entry of a life sentence to create an "entitlement" even without an "acquittal." Pp. 109-110.
(c) Dictum in United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 92, does not support the proposition that double jeopardy bars retrial when a defend-ant's case has been fully tried and the court on its own motion enters a life sentence. The mere prospect of a second capital-sentencing proceeding does not implicate the perils against which the Double Jeopardy Clause seeks to protect. Pp. 113-115.
2. The Due Process Clause also did not bar Pennsylvania from seeking the death penalty at the retrial. Nothing in § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment indicates that any "life" or "liberty" interest that Pennsylvania law may have given petitioner in the first proceeding's life sentence was somehow immutable, and he was "deprived" of any such interest only by operation of the "process" he invoked to invalidate the underlying first-degree murder conviction. This Court declines to hold that the Due Process Clause provides greater double-jeopardy protection than does the Double Jeopardy Clause. Pp. 115-116.
563 Pa. 533, 763 A. 2d 359, affirmed.
Scalia, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, IV, and V, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Thomas, J., joined. O'Connor, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, post, p. 116. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Souter, and Breyer, JJ., joined, post, p. 118.
Robert Brett Dunham argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Anne L. Saunders and John T. Adams.
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007