Source: http://uscivilliberties.org/historical-overview/3710-double-jeopardy-v-early-history-background-framing.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 06:13:39+00:00

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The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment protects a person from being placed twice in jeopardy for the ‘‘same offense.’’ While the exact origins of this guarantee against double jeopardy are not known, there can be no doubt that it possesses a long history. Ancient Jewish law contained references to principles encompassed by double jeopardy law; early Greek and early Roman law provided some form of protection against double jeopardy; and a prohibition against double jeopardy, emanating from a reading given to a verse in the Old Testament by Saint Jerome in 391, entered canon law as early as 847.
Various theories have been offered to explain the introduction of the double jeopardy principle into the common law. One theory postulates that it came from the Continent through canon law or through Roman law. Another theory suggests that the twelfth-century power struggle between Thomas a` Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and King Henry II, which ended in Henry’s retreating from his claim that the royal courts could punish clerics after they were convicted of a crime and stripped of their clerical status in an ecclesiastical court, led to the introduction of the principle. Still another theory claims that the protection against double jeopardy merely evolved over hundreds of years from Anglo–Saxon criminal procedure.
The scope of the common law’s protection against double jeopardy in the hundred years following the Norman Conquest in 1066 cannot be ascertained. The available evidence suggests that the earliest rulers paid little heed to questions of double jeopardy. For example, the Charter of Liberties issued by Henry I in 1101 did not contain a protection against double jeopardy, and in 1163, Henry II claimed he could try a cleric for murdering a knight despite the cleric’s acquittal of that offense in an ecclesiastical court.
Some cases decided at the beginning of the thirteenth century apparently recognized some protection against double jeopardy, but Magna Carta, which was originally issued by King John in 1215, contained no protection against double jeopardy. It is clear, however, that by the middle of the century the principle against double jeopardy had entered the common law. Nevertheless, its subsequent development and emergence into modern double jeopardy law was slow, perhaps because the power to prosecute for offenses had not yet coalesced in the state. At least since the Norman Conquest, criminal prosecutions could be brought not only by the king, but also by a private person in an action against another individual demanding punishment for the particular wrong the person suffered rather than for the offense against the public. By its very nature, the protection against double jeopardy constitutes a limitation upon the power of the state to prosecute and punish an individual, so the state’s gathering of the power to prosecute individuals is a prerequisite to a true double jeopardy situation.
Modern double jeopardy law began to emerge in England in the last half of the seventeenth century. By that time prosecutions by the king had begun replacing private prosecutions as the preferred method of prosecution. In addition, Edward Coke’s Institutes had been published posthumously in 1641 and 1644. Coke detailed the pleas of autrefoits acquit, autrefoits convict, and pardon and described the basis for double jeopardy, clarifying the concept and emphasizing its importance. Moreover, during the late 1600s, English courts began dealing with a variety of double jeopardy issues, expanding the protection against double jeopardy considerably. Among other things, the Court of King’s Bench held that a prosecutor could not seek a new trial following an acquittal (The King v. Read ) and that an acquittal in another country barred a subsequent prosecution for the same offense in England (Rex v. Hutchinson). It also prohibited the practice frequently engaged in by trial judges of discharging the jury when an acquittal appeared imminent in order to afford the prosecutor the opportunity to bring a stronger case in a new trial (The King v. Perkins).
Courts in several of the colonies and, after independence, the states recognized a prohibition against double jeopardy through decisional law. For example, courts in Virginia and New York acknowledged the English common law pleas of a former conviction and a former acquittal. Courts in Connecticut (Hannaball v. Spalding, 1 Root 86, Conn. Super. Ct., 1783; Coit v. Geer, 1 Kirby 269, Conn. Super. Ct., 1787) and Pennsylvania (Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236, Pa. Ct. Oyer and Terminer, 1788) also recognized a protection against double jeopardy.
During the debates on this proposal in the House, several representatives opposed the provision because they believed its language prohibiting more than one trial for the same offense contradicted established law and would, for instance, prevent a convicted individual from obtaining a new trial if prejudicial error infected the individual’s initial trial. One representative, arguing that the objective of a guarantee against double jeopardy is to preclude multiple punishments for a single offense, sought to amend the proposal by striking the words ‘‘one trial or,’’ but his proposed amendment was soundly defeated. An attempt to amend the proposal by inserting the words ‘‘by any law of the United States’’ after the words ‘‘same offense’’ also failed. The House subsequently adopted the proposed amendment concerning double jeopardy as submitted by the select committee and sent it and other proposed amendments to the Senate for its concurrence.
The Senate rewrote the proposed amendment on double jeopardy by substituting the phrase ‘‘be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb by any public prosecution’’ for the words ‘‘except in case of impeachment, to more than one trial or punishment.’’ It later deleted the words ‘‘by any public prosecution’’ and, after joining the provision with several others, approved it in its current form. The House agreed to the Senate’s version, and Congress submitted it to the states (along with other proposed amendments) for ratification. The states ratified the double jeopardy provision (as well as nearly all the other proposed amendments) in 1791, making it part of the Fifth Amendment.
Cogan, Neil H., ed. The Complete Bill of Rights: The Drafts, Debates, Sources, and Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 297–314.
Friedland, Martin L. Double Jeopardy. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1969, 1–16.
Hunter, Jill. ‘‘The Development of the Rule Against Double Jeopardy.’’ Journal of Legal History 5(1) (1984):3–19.
Rudstein, David S. Double Jeopardy: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004, 1–15.
Sigler, Jay A. Double Jeopardy: The Development of a Legal and Social Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969, 1–37.

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