State ex rel. Patterson v. Randall

HIGGINS, Judge.

Dale Patterson seeks to prohibit the trial court from permitting the State of Missouri to seek the death penalty upon his retrial for capital murder. He successfully appealed a conviction arising from a prior trial in which the State elected not to seek the death penalty. He asserts that such election in the first trial bars pursuit of that penalty upon his retrial. He contends that such a second trial would subject him to impermissible “prosecutorial vindictiveness” in violation of his right to due process, under U.S.Const. amend. XIV; would subject him to cruel and unusual…