Weissmann, J.
After an infant in her care died, Catherine Adkins was convicted at a bench trial of neglect of a dependent and sentenced to 30 years. From prison, she allegedly wrote letters appearing to confess to murder. When Adkins later sought postconviction relief claiming denial of a jury trial, the State warned it would file murder charges if her conviction were vacated. Because murder carries a minimum sentence 15 years longer than her current sentence, Adkins sought a declaratory judgment that Indiana Post-Conviction Rule 1(10) —a rule limiting when a court may impose a harsher sentence after post-conviction relief— would cap any future sentence at 30 years. The court disagreed and Adkins appeals.
Adkins misreads P-C.R. 1(10). The rule guards against judicial retaliation by barring a harsher sentence only when a defendant is resentenced for the same offense after post-conviction relief. It does not apply when the State, acting in good faith on newly discovered evidence, prosecutes a different offense. If Adkins is convicted of murder, the court must impose a sentence within that offense’s statutory range, even if it exceeds her original 30-year sentence. We affirm.
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The parties frame the question as whether P-C.R. 1(10) contains an implicit exception for newly discovered evidence permitting both new prosecution and a higher sentence. That framing incorrectly assumes P-C.R. 1(10) governs not only judicial sentencing but also prosecutorial charging decisions—two distinct legal spheres. Conflating them creates a false dilemma.
Adkins maintains that because P-C.R. 1(10) contains no exception for newly discovered evidence, any new conviction after post-conviction relief could not result in a sentence exceeding her existing 30-year term. The State argues there must be an exception allowing both the charges and proper sentencing but struggles to find textual support for such an exception in P-C.R. 1(10).
Both parties misread the rule. P-C.R. 1(10) addresses only judicial sentencing authority after post-conviction relief, not the prosecutor’s discretion to charge a new offense. When the State acts in good faith on newly discovered evidence to bring a different and more serious charge, the rule does not apply. If Adkins is convicted of murder, the court would be obligated to sentence within the statutory range for murder.
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The constitutional protection against vindictiveness operates independently of P-C.R. 1(10), which addresses judicial vindictiveness in resentencing for the same offense after post-conviction relief.
Thus P-C.R. 1(10)’s text confirms its limited reach, explicitly constraining “the sentencing court,” not the prosecutor. The rule prevents judges from increasing a sentence as retribution for a defendant’s success on post-conviction review. It does not restrict the State’s authority to file new or more serious charges based on newly discovered evidence.
Having established that the State may increase the severity of a criminal charge when supported by newly discovered evidence, we next consider whether P-C.R. 1(10) limits the court’s ability to impose a greater sentence following conviction for a more serious crime. The rule imposes no such limitation.
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And although our Supreme Court has not addressed the exact scenario presented in this appeal, its precedent supports this interpretation. The Court’s emphasis in Linthicum on procedural rather than substantive limits—that is, Indiana Code § 35-50-1-5 authorizes “a more severe penalty” following postconviction relief while P-C.R. 1(10) supplies only “the procedural conditions” for such sentences —indicates that properly pursued charges based on newly discovered evidence fall within permissible prosecutorial discretion. 511 N.E.2d at 1029.
In Bates v. State, 426 N.E.2d 404, 406 (Ind. 1981), the Court similarly ruled that P-C.R. 1(10) applies to crimes “flowing from the occurrences that gave rise to the initial charges and of which the State had . . . pertinent information and an opportunity to charge.” That limiting language implies an exception for evidence discovered after the original proceedings. And in Ballard v. State, 318 N.E.2d 798, 809-10 (Ind. 1974), this Court recognized that an earlier version of P-C.R. 1(10) risked unjust windfalls, a problem later cured by statutory amendment and the rule’s current exceptions, as recognized in Linthicum. 511 N.E.2d at 1029.
In sum, if Adkins is subsequently convicted of murder based on newly discovered evidence, any resulting sentence must fall within the statutory range for that offense. P-C.R. 1(10) neither bars the State from seeking such a conviction nor caps the permissible sentence at 30 years.
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P-C.R. 1(10) limits a court’s authority to resentence a defendant for the same offense after post-conviction relief. It neither curtails the State’s authority to file a new charge based on new evidence nor restricts the sentencing court from applying the proper statutory range to that conviction. Because the trial court’s declarations accurately reflect these principles, we affirm.
Bailey, J., and Brown, J., concur.