NCJ Number
92587
Journal
Iowa Law Review Volume: 69 Issue: 1 Dated: (October 1983) Pages: 127-208
Date Published
1983
Length
82 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the impact of Bordenkircher and Goodwin on the application of the Pearce-Blackledge doctrine to prosecutorial charging practices explains the basic concept of the prohibition against vindictive use of the power to punish, its theoretical foundations, and the Supreme Court's amplifications and applications of the basic concepts.
Abstract
It also considers the Court's earlier vindictiveness cases, which dealt with sentencing authority, theoretical foundations, and the purposes and effects of Pearce's prophylactic procedures. The study examines the extension of the ban against vindictiveness to the prosecutor; reviews limitations on the protections of the Pearce-Blackledge doctrine developed in the later cases of Bordenkircher and Goodwin; and evaluates the congruity of the Court's decisions. According to the Pearce-Blackledge doctrine, due process prohibits a judge or prosecutor from punishing a criminal defendant in retaliation for the exercise of a procedural right. The decisions of the Supreme Court reassure that the retaliatory use of the instrumentalities of punishment in response to a criminal defendant's assertion of a procedural right is patently unlawful. Yet, there is some cause for concern. The government argued in its belief in Goodwin that Bordenkircher and Corbitt v. New Jersey acknowledge the prosecutor's power to impose a penalty upon the exercise of a procedural right as long as she or he is motivated to a desire to dissuade a defendant from using scarce prosecutorial resources, regardless of whether notice is given and traditional plea bargaining occurs. If that view prevails, little remains of the underlying premises of the Pearce-Blackledge doctrine.