# Texas v. McCullough

> Supreme Court of the United States · February 26, 1986 · 475 U.S. 134

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430358

## Case

- **Full name:** TEXAS v. McCULLOUGH
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** February 26, 1986
- **Citations:** 475 U.S. 134; 54 U.S.L.W. 4188; 106 S. Ct. 976; 89 L. Ed. 2d 104; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 7
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Brennan
- **Judges:** Brennan, Burger, Marshall, O'Connor, Powell, Rehnquist, White
- **Cited by:** 462 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430358

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that rebuttable presumption of vindictiveness recognized in Pearce does not apply where “different sentencers assessed the varying sentences” so that harsher sentence imposed by a judge than the sentence imposed by a jury at a previous trial does not trigger a presu…
- explaining that the Court in Pearce had “applied a presumption of vindictiveness, which may be overcome only by objective information ... justifying the increased sentence” (omission in original) (quoting United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368, 374, 102 5.Ct 2485, 73 L.Ed.2d 7…
- stating that, where the sentencer is not the same in the two proceedings, the sentencer imposing the second sentence has no personal stake in the prior conviction and no motivation to engage in self-vindication, rendering the threat of vindictiveness far more speculative than …
- explaining that the possibility of vindictiveness is speculative where the second sentence is imposed by a different trial justice who has "no motivation to engage in self-vindication" (quoting Chaffin v. Stynchcombe , 412 U.S. 17 , 27, 93 S.Ct. 1977 , 36 L.Ed.2d 714 (1973) )
- stating that language "[rlestricting justifications for a sentence increase to only 'events that occurred subsequent to the original proceeding'" was not "intended to describe exhaustively all of the possible cireumstances in which a sentence increase could be justified."

## Opinion text

Justice Brennan,
concurring in the judgment.
After respondent was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment upon his conviction for murder, Judge Harney granted respondent’s motion for a new trial based on prosecutorial misconduct. Under these circumstances, I believe that the possibility that an increased sentence upon retrial resulted from judicial vindictiveness is sufficiently remote that the presumption established in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711 (1969), should not apply here. Because respondent has not shown that the 50-year sentence imposed by *145 Judge Harney after respondent’s retrial resulted from actual vindictiveness for having successfully attacked his first conviction,. I would reverse the judgment below.
I emphasize, however, that were I able to find that vindictiveness should be presumed here, I would agree with Justice Marshall that “the reasons offered by Judge Harney [were] far from adequate to rebut any presumption of vindictiveness.” Post, at 152. The Court’s dictum to the contrary, see ante, at 141-144, serves in my view only to distort the holding of Pearce .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430358. Public record. Not legal advice.