Prosecutorial vindictiveness encompasses actions taken by a prosecutor

Prosecutor

The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...

 to punish a defendant for not acceding to his demands. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the constitutional guarantee of due process

Due process

Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...

 protects a defendant against prosecutorial vindictiveness. To establish a prima facie

Prima facie

Prima facie is a Latin expression meaning on its first encounter, first blush, or at first sight. The literal translation would be "at first face", from the feminine form of primus and facies , both in the ablative case. It is used in modern legal English to signify that on first examination, a...

 case of prosecutorial vindictiveness, the defendant must show either direct evidence of actual vindictiveness or fact that warrant appearance of such. Blackledge v. Perry is the leading case in the realm of prosecutorial vindictiveness, but it has been limited by later decisions. Some difficulty has been cited in prohibiting prosecutorial vindictiveness while preserving prosecutorial discretion.