United States v. James R. Harris

James Harris was convicted of three counts of willful failure to file tax returns. In United States v. Harris, 683 F.2d 322 (9th Cir.1982), we reversed and remanded. Harris appeals his conviction after the second trial.

Harris contends the more severe sentence imposed upon the second trial was in retaliation for his successful appeal of the first. The district judge, however, explained that Harris’ more severe sentence resulted from failure to file required income tax returns following his first conviction. As the district court quite properly observed, after the first trial there could be no doubts in the defendant’s mind of his continuing obligation to file tax returns. This satisfies the requirement of North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 726 , 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2081 , 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), that in order to uphold more severe resentencing (1) the district court’s reasons for doing so must affirmatively appear on the record, and (2) the new sentence must be “based on objective information concerning identifiable conduct [by] the defendant occurring after the time of the original sentencing proceeding.”

Appellant did not assert at his sentencing hearing that anything other…