United States v. Barry Gene Spence

In this appeal from the Southern District of Georgia, petitioner Spence seeks reversal of the court’s denial of his motion to dismiss for prosecutorial vindictiveness. At issue is whether this denial was error. Spence was convicted in December 1982 on two counts of attempting to evade income taxes for 1976 and 1977 and on one count of submitting a false financial statement to the Small Business Administration. He received two consecutive five-year terms on the tax evasion counts and a two-year suspended sentence on the false statement count. Spence filed several pretrial motions including a…