Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/398/323
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 22:33:23+00:00

Document:
Petitioner sought direct review of his second conviction in the Supreme Court of Georgia, 1 but that court transferred the case to the Court of Appeals of Georgia, declaring that '(o)nly questions as to the application of plain and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution of the United States being involved, * * * the case is one for the consideration of the Court of Appeals * * *.' Price v. State, 224 Ga. 306, 307, 161 S.E.2d 825, 826 (1968).
An early case to deal with restrictions on retrials was Kepner v. United States, 195 U.S. 100, 24 S.Ct. 797, 49 L.Ed. 114 (1904), where the Court held that the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy prohibition barred the Government from appealing an acquittal in a criminal prosecution, 2 over a dissent by Mr. Justice Holmes that argued that there was only one continuing jeopardy until the proceedings against the accused had been finally resolved. He held to the view that even if an accused was retried after the Government had obtained reversal of an acquittal, the second trial was part of the original proceeding.
Similar double jeopardy issues did not fully claim the Court's attention until the Court heard argument in Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957). 3 There the petitioner had been tried and convicted of first-degree murder after an earlier guilty verdict on the lesser included offense of second-degree murder had been set aside on appeal. A majority of the Court rejected the argument that by appealing the conviction of second-degree murder the petitioner had 'waived' his plea of former jeopardy with regard to the charge of first-degree murder.
The Court in the Green case reversed the first-degree murder conviction obtained at the retrial, holding that the petitioner's jeopardy for first-degree murder came to an end when the jury was discharged at the end of his first trial. This conclusion rested on two premises. First, the Court considered the first jury's verdict of guilty on the second-degree murder charge to be an 'implicit acquittal' on the charge of first-degree murder. Second, and more broadly, the Court reasoned that petitioner's jeopardy on the greater charge had ended when the first jury 'was given a full opportunity to return a verdict' on that charge and instead reached a verdict on the lesser charge. 355 U.S., at 191, 78 S.Ct., at 225. Under either of these premises, the holding in the Kepner casethat there could be no appeal from an acquittal because such a verdict ended an accused's jeopardywas applicable.
The rationale of the Green holding applies here. The concept of continuing jeopardy implicit in the Ball case 4 would allow petitioner's retrial for voluntary manslaughter after his first conviction for that offense had been reversed. But, as the Kepner and Green cases illustrate, this Court has consistently refused to rule that jeopardy for an offense continues after an acquittal, whether that acquittal is express or implied by a conviction on a lesser included offense when the jury was given a full opportunity 5 to return a verdict on the greater charge. There is no relevant factual distinction between this case and Green v. United States. Although the petitioner was not convicted of the greater charge on retrial whereas Green was, the risk of conviction on the greater charge was the same in both cases, and the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment is written in terms of potential or risk of trial and conviction, not punishment.
We must reject this contention. The Double Jeopardy Clause, as we have noted, is cast in terms of the risk or hazard of trial and conviction, not of the ultimate legal consequences of the verdict. To be charged and to be subjected to a second trial for first-degree murder is an ordeal not to be viewed lightly. 10 Further, and perhaps of more importance, we cannot determine whether or not the murder charge against petitioner induced the jury to find him guilty of the less serious offense of voluntary manslaughter rather than to continue to debate his innocence. See United States ex rel. Hetenyi v. Wilkins, 348 F.2d 844 (C.A.2d Cir. 1965), cert. denied, Mancusi v. Hetenyi, 383 U.S. 913, 86 S.Ct. 896, 15 L.Ed.2d 667 (1966).
Kepner rested upon a portion of the Ball case that dealt with a criminal action that had been finally resolved. In Ball the Court had held that the Government could not re-indict an accused for an offense where a judgment of acquittal had been entered by a trial court with jurisdiction over the accused and the cause. 163 U.S., at 669670, 16 S.Ct. at 11941195. The Court relied partially on United States v. Sanges, 144 U.S. 310, 12 S.Ct. 609, 36 L.Ed. 445 (1892), where the Court had interpreted the Judiciary Act of 1891 to hold that the United States could not obtain review by a writ of error in a criminal case.
Shortly after Kepner the Court was faced with a factual situation somewhat akin to that presented by the instant case. In Trono v. United States, 199 U.S. 521, 26 S.Ct. 121, 50 L.Ed. 292 (1905), the defendants had been charged in a Philippine court with murder, and had been found guilty of the lesser offense of assault. On their appeal of the conviction the Philippine Supreme Court set aside the trial court's judgment, found them guilty of murder, and increased their sentences. This Court affirmed. Four Justices took the position that by appealing the assault conviction, the defendants had waived any double jeopardy claim respecting the murder charge. Mr. Justice Holmes concurred in the result without stating his rationale. Kepner had been decided in the previous year, however, and his concurrence could have indicated that, for him, a waiver theory was too narrowinstead he considered that even an appeal by the Government was a continuing jeopardy, not a second jeopardy. Of the four dissenters, two, Justices McKenna and White, would have found a violation of the Constitution's double jeopardy provision.
Acceptance of either Trono's waiver theory or Mr. Justice Holmes' broad continuing jeopardy approach would indicate that Price could not complain of his retrial for the greater offense. But Trono has not survived unscathed to the present day. The 'waiver theory' of four of the majority Justices in Trono was distinguished in Green as resting on 'a statutory provision against double jeopardy pertaining to the Philippine Islandsa territory just recently conquered with long-established legal procedures that were alien to the common law.' 355 U.S., at 197, 78 S.Ct., at 228.
After Kepner and Green, the continuing jeopardy principle appears to rest on an amalgam of interestse.g., fairness to society, lack of finality, and limited waiver, among others.
OHIO, Petitioner, v. Kenneth M. JOHNSON.
T.L. MORRIS, Superintendent, Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Petitioner v. James Michael MATHEWS.
Eugene Robert CIUZIO v. UNITED STATES.
Allen F. BREED, Etc., Petitioner, v. Gary Steven JONES.
Barrington Joseph JOHNSON, petitioner, v. UNITED STATES.

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