On direct appeal, we concluded that the two statutory aggravating circumstances, the murders of the two women, were mutually supporting, vacated the death penalty for the murder of his wife Mildred Godfrey, and affirmed the sentence of death for the murder of Chessie Wilkerson, his mother-in-law. Godfrey v. State, 248 Ga. 616 ( 284 S.E.2d 422) (1981). Godfrey then filed for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied.
See State v. Pina, 440 A.2d 962, 965 66 (Conn. 1981) (holding that where the sentence imposed did not make the statutorily required indication of whether the terms shall run concurrently or consecutively, the sentence may be corrected without imposing double jeopardy); Godfrey v. State, 248 Ga. 616, 284 S.E.2d 422, 425-26 (1981) (holding that where the Supreme Court had reversed defendant's death penalty sentence on the grounds it was a standardless and unchannelled imposition, the Double Jeopardy Clause does not preclude reimposition of death penalty on remand because the reversal was for trial error, not insufficiency of the evidence); and People v. Maldonado, 82 A.D.2d 576, 442 N.Y.S.2d 567 (N Y App. Div. 1981) (distinguishing Bullington on the grounds it was a capital case in which a trial was held on the issue of punishment, and on the grounds that the present case involved trial error rather than insufficiency of the evidence) See also Fitzpatrick v. State, 638 P.2d 1002 (Mont. 1981) (holding that because Montana's sentencing proceeding does not resemble a trial, Bullington does not preclude an imposition of the death penalty on retrial, even though the judge in the first trial refused to impose that penalty).