State v. Stafford

Defendant’s appeal presents for our reconsideration this question: Upon the retrial and conviction of an accused whose earlier conviction for the same offense was set aside upon appeal or in post-conviction proceedings because of a constitutional defect in the first trial, may the court impose a sentence severer than the one vacated?

The decisions of this Court have established the following rules for this jurisdiction: When, upon defendant’s application, a sentence is set aside and a new trial ordered, the whole case is tried de novo. The former judgment, therefore, does not fix the maximum…