Double jeopardy
Chapter 22 of the CLEP American Government study guide on Effortless Math covers Double jeopardy: the key terms, the core ideas, and worked examples showing how this topic is tested on the exam.
CLEP American Government, Chapter 22
Double jeopardy
The Double Jeopardy Clause protects a person from repeated prosecution or unauthorized multiple punishment for the same offense. The protection promotes finality and prevents government from wearing down an accused person through repeated trials. Jeopardy ordinarily attaches when the jury is sworn or, in a bench trial, when the first witness is sworn. After an acquittal, the government generally cannot try the same offense again even if the judge or jury may have misunderstood the evidence. To decide whether two statutory charges are the same offense, courts commonly ask whether each requires proof of an element the other does not. One event can therefore support separate offenses when the legislature defined genuinely different elements, but prosecutors cannot escape the clause merely by changing the label on an identical charge.
The rule permits some later proceedings. A hung jury may produce a retrial because no final verdict was reached. A conviction reversed for procedural trial error usually may be retried, while reversal because the evidence was legally insufficient generally has the effect of an acquittal. A defendant's own appeal is not a forbidden second prosecution. Under the separate-sovereigns doctrine, state and federal governments may prosecute the same conduct under their respective laws, although two counties within one state are not separate sovereigns. Suppose a state jury acquits a defendant of robbery and state prosecutors file the identical robbery charge again after finding a stronger witness. That is the core violation. A later federal charge containing a distinct federal offense presents a different inquiry. A common mistake is to assume that any second court proceeding arising from the same facts automatically violates double jeopardy.
Video lesson: Due Process of Law: Crash Course Government and Politics #28
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