James Thomas Ford v. Florida

At the final pretrial conference held a week before Petitioner’s trial, the prosecutor announced an ultimatum in open court: if the defendant did not waive his right to a trial by jury and accept an eightyear plea deal, the State would amend the charges to include a count for “human trafficking,” a crime that carries a mandatory life sentence. He rejected the deal and insisted on going to trial. Then, as promised, the prosecutor amended the charges. The human trafficking count was not justified by any new developments in the case. The evidence against him was the same as the day of his arrest some ten months before. And human trafficking seemed like a poor fit for the case because Mr. Ford did not “traffic” any “human.” His charges arose because he sent text messages to a law enforcement agent posing online as a minor and agreed to pay the non-existent minor for sexual services. Nevertheless, the jury found him guilty of human trafficking, which the State argued he committed merely by soliciting a minor for prostitution. QUESTION 1: Does a prosecutor engage in vindictive prosecution in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment where she amends the criminal charges one week before trial to bring a life felony on a novel legal theory that was not justified by any substantive developments in the case and announced on the record she was motivated to do so because the defendant exercised his right to a jury trial?