Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, 537 U.S. 101, 5 (2003)

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Cite as: 537 U. S. 101 (2003)

Opinion of the Court

law, discharged the jury as hung, and indicated that he would enter the required life sentence, id., at 23-24, which he later did, id., at 30-33.

Petitioner appealed to the Pennsylvania Superior Court. That court concluded that the trial judge had erred in instructing the jury in connection with various offenses with which petitioner was charged, including first-degree murder. It accordingly reversed petitioner's first-degree murder conviction and remanded for a new trial. Commonwealth v. Sattazahn, 428 Pa. Super. 413, 631 A. 2d 597 (1993).

On remand, Pennsylvania filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty. In addition to the aggravating circumstance alleged at the first sentencing hearing, the notice also alleged a second aggravating circumstance, petitioner's significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence to the person. (This was based on guilty pleas to a murder, multiple burglaries, and a robbery entered after the first trial.) Petitioner moved to prevent Pennsylvania from seeking the death penalty and from adding the second aggravating circumstance on retrial. The trial court denied the motion, the Superior Court affirmed the denial, App. 73, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to review the ruling, Commonwealth v. Sattazahn, 547 Pa. 742, 690 A. 2d 1162 (1997). At the second trial, the jury again convicted petitioner of first-degree murder, but this time imposed a sentence of death.

On direct appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed both the verdict of guilt and the sentence of death on retrial. 563 Pa., at 551, 763 A. 2d, at 369. Relying on its earlier decision in Commonwealth v. Martorano, 535 Pa. 178, 634 A. 2d 1063 (1993), the court concluded that neither the Double Jeopardy Clause nor the Due Process Clause barred Pennsylvania from seeking the death penalty at petitioner's retrial. 563 Pa., at 545-551, 763 A. 2d, at 366-369. We granted certiorari. 535 U. S. 926 (2002).

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