Texas v. Mccullough (475 U.S. 134)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 26, 1986 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 475 U.S. 134 · 106 S. Ct. 976
- Decided
- February 26, 1986
- Term
- October Term 1985
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Burger
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Burger delivered the opinion of the Court. We granted certiorari to decide whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was violated when the defendant in a state court received a greater sentence on retrial where the earlier sentence was imposed by the jury, the trial judge granted the defendant’s motion for a new trial, the defendant requested that in the second trial the judge fix the sentence, and the judge entered findings of fact justifying the longer sentence. I In 1980, Sanford James McCullough was tried before a jury in the Randall County, Texas, District Court and convicted of murder. McCullough elected to be sentenced by the jury, as was his right under Texas law. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.07 (Vernon 1981). The jury imposed a 20-year sentence. Judge Naomi Harney, the trial judge, then granted McCullough’s motion for a new trial on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct. Three months later, McCullough was retried before a jury, with Judge Harney again presiding. At this trial, the State presented testimony from two witnesses who had not testified at the first trial that McCullough rather than his accomplices had slashed the throat of the victim. McCullough was again found guilty by a jury. This time, he elected to have his sentence fixed by the trial judge. Judge Harney sentenced McCullough to 50 years in prison and, upon his…
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