Moon v. Maryland

“When at the behest of the defendant a criminal conviction has been set aside and a new trial ordered, to what extent does the Constitution limit the imposition of a harsher sentence after conviction upon retrial?” This was the question the Court dealt with last Term in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711. We held in that case that there exists no absolute constitutional bar to the imposition of a harsher sentence upon retrial, but that due process “requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he…