Source: https://openjurist.org/367/us/364
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 22:07:59+00:00

Document:
'On this basis we do not believe decision should be difficult, for the responsibility and discretion exercised by the judges below seem to us sound. * * * ' Id., at page 48.
Certainly, on the skimpy record before us8 it would exceed the appropriate scope of review were we ourselves to attempt to pass an independent judgment upon the propriety of the mistrial, even should we be prone to do so—as we are not, with due regard for the guiding familiarity with district judges and with district court conditions possessed by the Courts of Appeals.
On March 9, 1959, petitioner moved to dismiss the information on the ground that to try him again would constitute double jeopardy. The motion was denied and he was retried in April. He now attacks the conviction in which the second trial resulted.
In this state of the record, we are not required to pass upon the broad contentions pressed, respectively, by counsel for petitioner and for the Government. The case is one in which, viewing it most favorably to petitioner, the mistrial order upon which his claim of jeopardy is based was found neither apparently justified nor clearly erroneous by the Court of Appeals in its review of a cold record. What that court did find and what is unquestionable is that the order was the product of the trial judge's extreme solicitude—an overeager solicitude, it may be—in favor of the accused.
'* * * We think, that in all cases of this nature, the law has invested Courts of justice with the authority to discharge a jury from giving any verdict, whenever, in their opinion, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there is a manifest necessity for the act, or the ends of public justice would otherwise be defeated. They are to exercise a sound discretion on the subject; and it is impossible to define all the circumstances, which would render it proper to interfere. To be sure, the power ought to be used with the greatest caution, under urgent circumstances, and for very plain and obvious causes; and, in capital cases especially, courts should be extremely careful how they interfere with any of the chances of life, in favor of the prisoner. But, after all, they have the right to order the discharge; and the security which the public have for the faithful, sound, and conscientious exercise of this discretion, rests, in this, as in other cases, upon the responsibility of the judges, under their oaths of office. * * *' 9 Wheat., at page 580.
The present case falls within these broad considerations. Judicial wisdom counsels against anticipating hypothetical situations in which the discretion of the trial judge may be abused and so call for the safeguard of the Fifth Amendment—cases in which the defendant would be harassed by successive, oppressive prosecutions, or in which a judge exercises his authority to help the prosecution, at a trial in which its case is going badly, by affording it another, more favorable opportunity to convict the accused. Suffice that we are unwilling, where it clearly appears that a mistrial has been granted in the sole interest of the defendant, to hold that its necessary consequence is to bar all retrial. It would hark back to the formalistic artificialities of seventeenth century criminal procedure so to confine our federal trial courts by compelling them to navigate a narrow compass between Scylla and Charybdis. We would not thus make them unduly hesitant conscientiously to exercise their most sensitive judgment according to their own lights in the immediate exigencies of trial for the more effective protection of the criminal accused.
The place one comes out, when faced with the problem of this case, depends largely on where one atarts.
There are occasions where a second trial may be had, although the jury which was impanelled for the first trial was discharged without reaching a verdict and without the defendant's consent. Mistrial because the jury was unable to agree is the classic example; and that was the critical circumstance in United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579, 6 L.Ed. 165; Logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263, 12 S.Ct. 617. 36 L.Ed. 429; Dreyer v. People of State of Illinois, 187 U.S. 71, 23 S.Ct. 28, 47 L.Ed. 79; Moss v. Glenn, 189 U.S. 506, 23 S.Ct. 851, 47 L.Ed. 921; Keerl v. State of Montana, 213 U.S. 135, 29 S.Ct. 469, 53 L.Ed. 734. Tactical situations of an army in the field have been held to justify the withdrawal of a court-martial proceeding and the institution of another one in calmer days. Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 69 S.Ct. 834, 837, 93 L.Ed. 974. Discovery by the judge during the trial that 'one or more members of a jury might be biased against the Government or the defendant' has been held to warrant discharge of the jury and direction of a new trial. Id., 336 U.S. 689, 69 S.Ct. 837. And see Simmons v. United States, 142 U.S. 148, 12 S.Ct. 171, 35 L.Ed. 968; Thompson v. United t ates, 155 U.S. 271, 15 S.Ct. 73, 39 L.Ed. 146. That is to say, 'a defendant's valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal must in some instances be subordinated to the public's interest in fair trials designed to end in just judgments.'2 Wade v. Hunter, supra, 336 U.S. 689, 69 S.Ct. 837. While the matter is said to be in the sound discretion of the trial court, that discretion has some guidelines—' a trial can be discontinued when particular circumstances manifest a necessity for so doing, and when failure to discontinue would defeat the ends of justice.' Id., 336 U.S. 690, 69 S.Ct. 838.
That is my starting point. I read the Double Jeopardy Clause as applying a strict standard. 'The prohibition is not against being twice punished, but against being twice put in jeopardy.' United States v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662, 669, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 1194, 41 L.Ed. 300. It is designed to help equalize the position of government and the individual, to discourage abusive use of the awesome power of society. Once a trial starts jeopardy attaches. The prosecution must stand or fall on its performance at the trial. I do not see how a mistrial directed because the prosecutor has no witnesses is different from a mistrial directed because the prosecutor abuses his office and is guilty of misconduct. In neither is there a breakdown in judicial machinery such as happens when the judge is stricken, or a juror has been discovered to be disqualified to sit, or when it is impossible or impractical to hold a trial at the time and place set. The question is not, as the Court of Ap eals thought, whether a defendant is 'to receive absolution for his crime.' 282 F.2d 43, 48. The policy of the Bill of Rights is to make rare indeed the occasions when the citizen can for the same offense be required to run the gantlet twice. The risk of judicial arbitrariness rests where, in my view, the Constitution puts it—on the Government.
364 U.S. 917, 81 S.Ct. 282, 5 L.Ed.2d 258.
Prior to the proceedings in the two trials which are relevant for present purposes, denominated the 'first' and 'second' trials herein, there had been a mistrial granted upon motion of petitioner.
The statute makes unlawful, inter alia, the receipt or possession of any goods stolen from a vehicle and moving as, or constituting, an interstate shipment of freight, knowing the goods to be stolen.
We cannot, of course, determine what result would obtain had the Court of Appeals, in light of its close acquaintance with the local situation, decided that petitioner's mistrial operated to bar his furtherp rosecution, and were such a decision before us.
In light of our disposition, we need not reach the Government's suggestion that petitioner's failure to object to the mistrial adversely affects his claim. We note petitioner's argument that, because of the precipitous course of events, there was no opportunity for such objection.
'The colloquy (immediately preceding the mistrial) * * * demonstrates that the prosecutor did nothing to instigate the declaration of a mistrial and that he was only performing his assigned duty under trying conditions. This is borne out by the entire transcript, including also that covering the morning session. Nor does it make entirely clear the reasons which led the judge to act, though the parties appear agreed that he intended to prevent the prosecutor from bringing out evidence of other crimes by the accused. Even so, the judge should have awaited a definite question which would have permitted a clear-cut ruling. * * *' 282 F.2d at page 46.
The record here contains, with respect to the February 4 trial, two paragraphs from the Government's opening, four paragraphs from the petitioner's opening, a six-line colloquy between the court and prosecuting counsel, a portion of the examination of the third of the Government's first three witnesses, and the entire transcript of the testimony of the fourth witness. The last two items are set out in the affidavit of the Assistant United State Attorney in opposition to petitioner's motion to dismiss the information following the mistrial.
Brock v. State of North Carolina was a state prosecution and therefore arose, of course, under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The passage quoted from Brock, however, related to the application in federal prosecutions of the double jeopardy provision of the Fifth.
In Lovato v. State of New Mexico, 242 U.S. 199, 201, 37 S.Ct. 107, 108, 61 L.Ed. 244, the jury was dismissed so that the defendant could be arraigned and could plead; and it was then impanelled again. The case stands for no more than the settled proposition that 'a mere irregularity of procedure' does not always amount to double jeopardy.
See United States v. Watson, 28 Fed.Cas. p. 499, No. 16,651; United States v. Whitlow, D.C., 110 F.Supp. 871; Ex parte Ulrich, D.C., 42 F. 587.
In state cases, a second prosecution has been barred where the jury was discharged through the trial judge's misconstruction of the law. Jackson v. Superior Court, 10 Cal.2d 350, 74 P.2d 243, 113 A.L.R. 1422; State v. Spayde, 110 Iowa 726, 80 N.W. 1058; State v. Callendine, 8 Iowa 288; Lillard v. Commonwealth, Ky., 267 S.W.2d 712; Mullins v. Commonwealth, 258 Ky. 529, 80 S.W.2d 606; Robinson v. Commonwealth, 88 Ky. 386, 11 S.W. 210; Williams v. Commonwealth, 78 Ky. 93; Yarbrough v. State, 90 Okl.Cr. 74, 210 P.2d 375; Loyd v. State, 6 Okl.Cr. 76, 116 P. 959.
Where the trial judge has made a mistake in concluding that the jury was illegally impanelled, or biased, a second prosecution has been barred. Whitmore State, 43 Ark. 271; Gillespie v. State, 168 Ind. 298, 80 N.E. 829; O'Brian v. Commonwealth, 72 Ky. 333; People v. Parker, 145 Mich. 488, 108 N.W. 999; State v. Nelson, 19 R.I. 467, 34 A. 990, 33 L.R.A. 559; State v. M'Kee, 17 S.C.L. (1 Bailey) 651, 21 Am.Dec. 499; Tomasson v. State, 112 Tenn. 596, 79 S.W. 802. See also Hilands v. Commonwealth, 111 Pa. 1, 2 A. 70, 56 Am.Rep. 235, as limited by Commonwealth v. Simpson, 310 Pa. 380, 165 A. 498. Cf. Maden v. Emmons, 83 Ind. 331.
The accused has also been discharged where the trial judge erred in his estimate of the prejudicial quality of the remarks made by counsel for the accused, Armentrout v. State, 214 Ind. 273, 15 N.E.2d 363, or of the jurors' drinking beer which had been brought in by the bailiff. State v. Leunig, 42 Ind. 541.

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