Source: https://casetext.com/case/richardson-v-united-states-38
Timestamp: 2019-12-12 20:15:53
Document Index: 18300309

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 841', '§ 846', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291', '§ 1291']

Richardson v. United States, 468 U.S. 317 | Casetext
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Richardsonv.United States
Upon reconvening later in the day, the trial court entered a docket entry reflecting defendant's intention to…
Ex Parte Queen
TEX.R.APP.P. 32. Therefore, as with a new trial after a mistrial, initial jeopardy continues.Lofton, 777…
holding that "the failure of the jury to reach a verdict is not an event which terminates jeopardy" and that "[r]egardless of the sufficiency of the evidence at petitioner's first trial, he has no valid double jeopardy claim to prevent his retrial"
Summary of this case from United States v. Ayoub
holding that a denial of motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds is immediately appealable
Summary of this case from U.S. v. Yeager
holding that a hung jury is not an event which terminates jeopardy and noting that petitioner thus had no double jeopardy claim "[r]egardless of the sufficiency of the evidence at [his] first trial"
Argued March 20, 1984 Decided June 29, 1984
Michael W. McConnell argued the cause pro hac vice for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Lee, Assistant Attorney General Trott, Deputy Solicitor General Frey, and Kathleen A. Felton.
Petitioner was indicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on two counts of distributing a controlled substance, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and one count of conspiring to distribute a controlled substance, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. Twice — at the close of the Government's case in chief and before submission of the case to the jury — he moved unsuccessfully for judgment of acquittal on the ground that the Government had failed to introduce sufficient evidence to warrant a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury acquitted petitioner of one substantive narcotics violation, but was unable to reach a verdict on the two remaining counts. The District Court declared a mistrial as to these two remaining counts and scheduled a retrial, at which point petitioner renewed his motion for judgment of acquittal based on the legal insufficiency of the evidence. In addition, petitioner argued at this time that retrial was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The District Court denied both motions and petitioner appealed.
The substance of petitioner's claim that the Government's evidence was insufficient to convict is that the evidence established that petitioner was involved in only one drug transaction, an event which alone, he argues, is insufficient to support a charge of conspiracy. Alternatively, petitioner argues that even if the evidence supports a finding that two drug sales took place, these sales were so isolated in time that no conspiracy could be inferred from their occurrence. Petitioner's case depends, however, Page 319 on excluding from consideration all statements made by his alleged co-conspirator implicating petitioner in the drug scheme. In light of our holding that petitioner has no valid double jeopardy claim, we have no occasion to address this argument.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed petitioner's appeal for want of jurisdiction. 226 U.S.App.D.C. 342, 702 F.2d 1079 (1983). The Court of Appeals reasoned that its jurisdiction to review petitioner's double jeopardy claim depended upon the appealability of the District Court's ruling on petitioner's motion for judgment of acquittal based on the insufficiency of the evidence. Because the District Court's ruling on the latter motion was not a final judgment appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, that ruling could only be reviewed if it fell within the collateral-order doctrine enunciated by this Court in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949). The court held that the ruling on the legal sufficiency of the evidence was "anything but collateral," and thus it lacked appellate jurisdiction to review that claim. 226 U.S. App. D.C., at 344-345, 702 F.2d, at 1081-1082. Since the merits of petitioner's double jeopardy claim depended entirely on reviewing the legal sufficiency of the evidence, the court concluded that petitioner had failed to present a double jeopardy claim which could be reviewed at that point. We granted certiorari to review the decision of the Court of Appeals, 464 U.S. 890 (1983), because of a conflict with the decision reached by the Third Circuit in United States v. McQuilkin, 673 F.2d 681 (1982), and because of the implications of the decision below for the administration of criminal justice.
Judge Scalia dissented, arguing that under our decision in Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651 (1977), the court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to review petitioner's double jeopardy claim. Judge Scalia would have held, however, that petitioner failed to raise a meritorious double jeopardy claim.
Two other Circuits that have considered the question have reached the same conclusion as the Court of Appeals in this case. See United States v. Ellis, 646 F.2d 132, 135 (CA4 1981); United States v. Becton, 632 F.2d 1294, 1297 (CA5 1980), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 837 (1981).
Petitioner contends that under our decisions in Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651 (1977), and Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1 (1978), he is entitled to an interlocutory review of his claim that a second trial is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause because the Government failed to introduce legally sufficient evidence to go to the jury at the first trial. Burks, however, involved no issue of interlocutory review, since it was an appeal from a final judgment of conviction. But Abney arose in the context of an interlocutory appeal. There we held that denial of a defendant's pretrial motion to dismiss an indictment on double jeopardy grounds was appealable as a "collateral order" under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Despite the strong congressional policy embodied in § 1291 against interlocutory appeals in criminal cases, DiBella v. United States, 369 U.S. 121, 126 (1962), we held that the claim in Abney met the three-part test established in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., supra, because a double jeopardy claim contested the very power of the Government to bring a person to trial, and the right would be significantly impaired if review were deferred until after the trial. We said:
The Government understandably expresses concern that interlocutory appeals of this nature may disrupt the administration of criminal justice. But allowing appeals such as this is completely consistent with the Court's admonition in Cohen that the words "final decision" in § 1291 should have a "practical rather than a technical construction." Cohen, 337 U.S., at 546. Petitioner's first trial had ended and his second trial had been rescheduled before he asserted his double jeopardy claim to bar retrial. There was thus no effort to interrupt or delay proceedings during the time that a jury was empaneled or that the District Court had under advisement motions relating to the first trial. Moreover, we have indicated that the appealability of a double jeopardy claim depends upon its being at least "colorable," United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850, 862 (1978), and that "frivolous claims of former jeopardy" may be weeded out by summary procedures, Abney, supra, at 662, n. 8. Cf. United States v. Head, 697 F.2d 1200, 1204 (CA4 1982). These limitations, together with the continuing requirement that the order of the District Court which is appealed from be a "final" decision on the double jeopardy claim, provide adequate insurance against the evils which the Government fears. Thus, we hold that petitioner has raised a colorable double jeopardy claim appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
Turning to the merits of petitioner's double jeopardy claim, we reject it. He asserts that if the Government failed to introduce sufficient evidence to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at his first trial, he may not be tried again following a declaration of a mistrial because of a hung jury. While petitioner bases this contention on Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1 (1978), we do not agree that Burks resulted in the sweeping change in the law of double jeopardy which petitioner would have us hold. In Burks we held that once a defendant obtained an unreversed appellate ruling that the Government had failed to introduce sufficient evidence to convict him at trial, a second trial was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Id., at 18. We overruled prior decisions such as Bryan v. United States, 338 U.S. 552 (1950), in which we held that if a defendant successfully sought reversal of his conviction on appeal because of insufficient evidence, retrial following such reversal was not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause.
The Court in Burks did not deal with the situation in which a trial court declares a mistrial because of a jury's inability to agree on a verdict. Thus, petitioner's reliance on Burks in the context of the present case can be supported only if that decision laid down some overriding principle of double jeopardy law that was applicable across the board in situations totally different from the facts out of which it arose. But it is quite clear that our decision in Burks did not extend beyond the procedural setting in which it arose. Where, as here, there has been only a mistrial resulting from a hung jury, Burks simply does not require that an appellate court rule on the sufficiency of the evidence because retrial might be barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. See Justices of Boston Municipal Court v. Lydon, 466 U.S. 294, 308-310 (1984).
The case law dealing with the application of the prohibition against placing a defendant twice in jeopardy following a mistrial because of a hung jury has its own sources and logic. It has been established for 160 years, since the opinion of Justice Story in United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579 (1824), that a failure of the jury to agree on a verdict was an instance of "manifest necessity" which permitted a trial judge to terminate the first trial and retry the defendant, because "the ends of public justice would otherwise be defeated." Id., at 580. Since that time we have had occasion to examine the application of double jeopardy principles to mistrials granted for reasons other than the inability of the jury to agree, whether the mistrial is granted on the motion of the prosecution, see Illinois v. Somerville, 410 U.S. 458 (1973), or on the motion of the defendant, see Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667 (1982); United States v. Dinitz, 424 U.S. 600 (1976). Nevertheless, we have constantly adhered to the rule that a retrial following a "hung jury" does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. Logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263, 297-298 (1892). Explaining our reasons for this conclusion in Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497 (1978), we said:
We are entirely unwilling to uproot this settled line of cases by extending the reasoning of Burks, which arose out of an appellate finding of insufficiency of evidence to convict following a jury verdict of guilty, to a situation where the jury is unable to agree on a verdict. Thirty-five years ago we said in Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 688-689 (1949):
But this proposition is irreconcilable with cases such as Perez and Logan, and we hold on the authority of these cases that the failure of the jury to reach a verdict is not an event which terminates jeopardy. Our holding in Burks established only that an appellate court's finding of insufficient evidence to convict on appeal from a judgment of conviction is for double jeopardy purposes, the equivalent of an acquittal; it obviously did not establish, consistently with cases such as Perez, that a hung jury is the equivalent of an acquittal. Justice Holmes' aphorism that "a page of history is worth a volume of logic" sensibly applies here, and we reaffirm the proposition that a trial court's declaration of a mistrial following a hung jury is not an event that terminates the original jeopardy to which petitioner was subjected. The Government, like the defendant, is entitled to resolution of the case by verdict from the jury, and jeopardy does not terminate when the jury is discharged because it is unable to agree. Regardless of the sufficiency of the evidence at petitioner's first trial, he has no valid double jeopardy claim to prevent his retrial.
Of course, a trial court's finding of insufficient evidence also is the equivalent of an acquittal, see Hudson v. Louisiana, 450 U.S. 40, 44-45, n. 5 (1981), but Burks was not necessary to establish that principle. See Burks v. United States, 437 U.S., at 11, citing Fong Foo v. United States, 369 U.S. 141 (1962); Kepner v. United States, 195 U.S. 100 (1904).
It follows logically from our holding today that claims of double jeopardy such as petitioner's are no longer "colorable" double jeopardy claims which may be appealed before final judgment. A colorable claim, of course, presupposes that there is some possible validity to a claim. Cf. Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 751-752 (1983); Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U.S. 670, 694-695 (1982). Since no set of facts will support the assertion of a claim of double jeopardy like petitioner's in the future, there is no possibility that a defendant's double jeopardy rights will be violated by a new trial, and there is little need to interpose the delay of appellate review before a second trial can begin.
I agree with the Court that petitioner's claim is appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and that the case therefore turns on whether, if petitioner's sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim is valid, retrial is barred. Relying on cases in which we have held that "retrial following a `hung jury' does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause," ante, at 324, the Court asserts that "the failure of the jury to reach a verdict is not an event which terminates jeopardy," ante, at 325. In so reasoning, the Court, in my view, improperly ignores the realities of the defendant's situation and relies instead on a formalistic concept of "continuing jeopardy." See Justices of Boston Municipal Court v. Lydon, 466 U.S. 294, 315-316 (1984) (BRENNAN, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Apparently, under the Court's approach, only an actual judgment of acquittal, or an unreversed conviction, would "terminate" jeopardy and thereby bar retrial. Accordingly, a defendant who is constitutionally entitled to an acquittal but who fails to receive one — because he happens to be tried before an irrational or lawless factfinder or because his jury cannot agree on a verdict — is worse off than a defendant tried before a factfinder who demands constitutionally sufficient evidence. Indeed, he is worse off than a guilty defendant who is acquitted due to mistakes of fact or law. See Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U.S. 203, 211 (1984). I do not believe this paradoxical result is faithful to the principle we have repeatedly reaffirmed that the Double Jeopardy Clause "precludes retrial where the State has failed as a matter of law to prove its case despite a fair opportunity to do so." Hudson v. Louisiana, 450 U.S. 40, 45, n. 5 (1981). See Justices of Boston Municipal Court v. Lydon, supra, at 314.
Instead, as I explained at greater length in Lydon, I believe a common-sense approach to claims of "continuing jeopardy" requires a court to ask, first, whether an initial proceeding at which jeopardy attached has now objectively ended, and, second, whether a new proceeding would violate the Constitution. 466 U.S., at 320-322. In answering the first question, we should look to the fundamental policies of the Double Jeopardy Clause, "namely, its concern that repeated trials may subject a defendant `to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compe[l] him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.' . . . Jeopardy may be said to have terminated only when the posture of a trial in some objective sense leaves the defendant in such a position that resumption of proceedings would implicate those policies." Id., at 320 (quoting Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 187-188 (1957)). Employing that analysis, I have little trouble concluding that when a jury, unable to reach a verdict, is dismissed and a mistrial is declared, a defendant's trial has come to an end. An entirely new trial on the same indictment before a new jury, presumably with much of the same evidence, will plainly subject the defendant to the kinds of risks and costs that the Double Jeopardy Clause was intended to prohibit. See Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 503-504 (1978). I therefore conclude that the declaration of a mistrial "terminated" one proceeding against petitioner.
In contrast to a defendant tried in a two-tier system like that at issue in Justice of Boston Municipal Court v. Lydon, 466 U.S. 294 (1984), a defendant in petitioner's circumstances will approach his trial on the assumption that it will be his only opportunity to influence the factfinder in his favor. That expectation will result in a maximum dedication of the defendant's resources to the initial proceeding, will deprive him of the ability to take strategic advantage of his knowledge that he will have another factfinding opportunity, and will engender in him a significant degree of anxiety during the course of the first trial. Accordingly, in a traditional Page 329 trial system, an event that ends the first proceeding, such as the declaration of a mistrial, has significance in terms of the policies underlying the Double Jeopardy Clause that it does not have in the two-tier context. Cf. Lydon, supra, at 320-321 (BRENNAN, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
By identifying the point at which a trial has terminated, I believe we also determine the point at which a defendant should be able to obtain review of a claim that a new trial is barred. See Justices of Boston Municipal Court v. Lydon, supra, at 320-321 (BRENNAN, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Such a claim is plainly ripe when the first proceeding has ended and a new one is imminent. As the Court explains, a "colorable" double jeopardy claim "contest[s] the very power of the Government to bring a person to trial, and the right would be significantly impaired if review were deferred until after the trial." Ante, at 320. See Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 662 (1977).
In so concluding, I do not reject the longstanding rule, emphasized by the Court, that, in cases of "manifest necessity," retrial may be permitted despite a mistrial. "The fact that a trial has ended does not . . . complete the constitutional inquiry; the Court has concluded [in several contexts] that strong policy reasons may justify subjecting a defendant to two trials in certain circumstances notwithstanding the literal language of the Double Jeopardy Clause." Lydon, 466 U.S., at 308-309. Until the decision in Lydon, however, we did not seek to justify such a retrial by pretending that it was not really a new trial at all but was instead simply a "continuation" of the original proceeding. See ibid. In Arizona v. Washington, supra, for example, we reviewed the unusual circumstances that might permit retrial after a mistrial order. We did not, however, seek to evade the common-sense fact that such an order "terminates" the first trial. We explained that, "[u]nlike the situation in which the trial has ended in an acquittal or conviction, retrial is not automatically barred when a criminal proceeding is terminated without finally resolving the merits of the charges against the accused." 434 U.S., at 505 (emphasis added). In short, the question whether a trial has ended is distinct from the question whether a new trial is permissible.
In answering the second question, I believe the mistrial cases on which the Court relies so heavily are quite beside the point. It is, of course, true, as the Court explains, that we have long held "`that the trial judge may discharge a genuinely deadlocked jury and require the defendant to submit to a second trial.'" Ante, at 324 (quoting Arizona v. Washington, supra, at 509). But that proposition demonstrates only that petitioner's new trial is not constitutionally barred simply because the original jury was unable to reach a verdict. Petitioner's objection to the new trial is not, however, based on the fact that his trial ended with a hung jury. Instead, he contends that retrial is prohibited because the prosecution failed to present constitutionally sufficient evidence at the trial. That contention is, in my view, correct under Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 15-16 (1978), notwithstanding the fact that, in contrast to the situation in that case, no court has yet declared the evidence insufficient. The fundamental principle underlying Burks, and indeed most of our double jeopardy cases, is that the prosecution is entitled to one, and only one, full and fair opportunity to convict the defendant. When the prosecution has failed to present constitutionally sufficient evidence, it cannot complain of unfairness in being denied a second chance, and the interests in finality, shared by the defendant and society, strongly outweigh the reasons for a retrial. See ibid.; see also Arizona v. Washington, supra, at 503-504. These principles are no less applicable in a case in which the inadequacy of the evidence is not recognized by the trial judge.
The reasoning of Tibbs necessarily presupposes that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial after the prosecution's failure of proof at the first trial — even if that failure of proof is as yet judicially undeclared. If this were not so, the "masking" problem discussed in Tibbs would be irrelevant: the state appellate court could remand for retrial without addressing the insufficiency claim and the defendant would never be able to challenge the evidence at the first trial. See also id., at 51 (WHITE, J., dissenting).
The dispositive question of appellate jurisdiction that is presented in this case is whether an order denying a motion for a judgment of acquittal on the ground that the evidence is legally insufficient is appealable as a final judgment. I believe that the order is not appealable; therefore, as a matter of law, not even a colorable double jeopardy question is presented.
After the District Court had discharged the jury because it was unable to agree upon a verdict on two counts of the indictment, petitioner filed two separate motions: (1) a motion for a judgment of acquittal on the ground that the evidence was legally insufficient to support a conviction; and (2) a motion to bar retrial on the ground that because he was "entitled to judgments of acquittal on those counts," a second trial would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. App. 15a. On Friday, September 11, 1981, the District Court entered a written order denying the first motion. Id., at 18a. Petitioner promptly filed a notice of appeal in which he described that order as having "denied motions for judgments of acquittal and by necessary implication double jeop. claim." Record 28. On Monday, September 13, 1981, in a colloquy with petitioner's counsel, the District Court agreed that "the double jeopardy claim [that] hinged on the ruling [on the motion for] Judgment of Acquittal" had been denied implicitly.
Two separate questions of appellate jurisdiction were therefore presented to the Court of Appeals. Judge Wilkey's opinion for the Court of Appeals correctly recognized the separate character of the two questions and correctly answered them both. First, if we separately consider the order denying the motion for a judgment of acquittal, it is perfectly clear that, because the District Court did not reach a final judgment, the motion is not appealable on its face as a "final decision," 28 U.S.C. § 1291, or under the "collateral order" exception to the final-judgment rule established in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949).
"We have little difficulty in applying this test to the district court's ruling on Richardson's insufficiency claim. That ruling fails to meet the second Page 334 and third requirements of Cohen. As two other circuits have noted, the legal sufficiency of the evidence presented is `a completely non-collateral issue.' This is because the ultimate question in a criminal trial is whether the defendant is guilty of the crime charged. A defendant who chooses to go to trial is not guilty unless the prosecution is able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime. If the evidence presented at the first trial was legally insufficient, Richardson is automatically not guilty. Thus, the sufficiency of the evidence is anything but collateral to the merits of the upcoming trial ( i. e., the question of defendant's guilt, for this is determined by the sufficiency of the evidence); rather, it is a `step toward final disposition of the merits of the case [which will] be merged in the final judgment,' the type of issue which is not covered by the collateral order exception.
"Further, the right to appellate review of the issue will not necessarily be lost if we refuse review at this time. Three circuits have held that a criminal defendant can challenge the sufficiency of the evidence presented at his first trial (which resulted in a hung jury) when appealing his conviction at the second trial. Indeed, in the present case the government concedes that Richardson's insufficiency claim will not be lost if it is not reviewed at this time, noting that `in the event he is convicted, [Richardson] can raise [the insufficiency claim] on appeal from that conviction.' Therefore, because the insufficiency claim does not meet either the second or third Cohen requirements, we cannot review that claim until after a final judgment is entered." 226 U.S.App.D.C. 342, 344, 702 F.2d 1079, 1081 (1983) (footnotes omitted).
Second, it is equally clear that unless petitioner was entitled to have his first motion granted, there was no basis in law for his dependent double jeopardy motion. Indeed, as petitioner recognized in his notice of appeal and in his colloquy with the District Court, the double jeopardy argument is entirely contingent on the validity of his first motion — the second "hinged" on the first; the denial of the first implicitly rejected the second. Because the order denying the principal motion is not appealable, it is difficult for me to understand how the Court can conclude that the order implicitly denying the dependent motion can either be appealable in its own right, or can convert the otherwise nonappealable, nonfinal order into an appealable order.
The appealability issue would be different if the petitioner were claiming that the order declaring a mistrial was itself a bar to a second trial. If, for example, the jury had deliberated for only a few minutes and the prosecutor, fearful of an adverse verdict, had persuaded the trial judge to discharge the jury before it could fairly be said that they were deadlocked — in other words, when there was no "manifest necessity," see Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 505-508 (1978) — the defendant might then argue that the mistrial order was itself tantamount to an acquittal that terminated the first jeopardy. This is not, however, such a case because petitioner does not challenge the order declaring a mistrial and he has no other order to which he can point as constituting a bar to a second trial.
Although I recognize the precedential authority of Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651 (1977), I do not believe that case acts as a vacuum cleaner of appealability for every claim couched as a double jeopardy violation. In Abney, the Court carefully noted that "it is true that a pretrial order denying a motion to dismiss an indictment on double jeopardy grounds lacks the finality traditionally considered indispensable to appellate review," id., at 659, but that such orders fell within the Cohen collateral-order exception to the final-judgment rule. 431 U.S., at 659. To begin with, I have already noted that the denial of a motion for a judgment of acquittal based on insufficient evidence cannot separately survive the Cohen analysis. More important, I believe that the Court's discussion of Cohen's collateral-issue prong in Abney supports the view that Abney was not intended to reach a situation such as that before us today. The Court stated:
"Moreover, the very nature of a double jeopardy claim is such that it is collateral to, and separable from, the principal issue at the accused's impending criminal trial, i. e., whether or not the accused is guilty of the offense charged. In arguing that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment bars his prosecution, the defendant makes no challenge whatsoever to the merits of the charge against him. Nor does he seek suppression of evidence which the Government plans to use in obtaining a conviction. Rather, he is contesting the very authority of the Government to hale him into court to face trial on the charge against him. The elements of that claim are completely independent of his guilt or innocence. . . . Thus, the matters embraced in the trial court's pretrial order here are truly collateral to the criminal prosecution itself in the sense that they will not `affect, or . . . be affected by, decision of the merits of this case.'" 431 U.S., at 659-660 (quoting Cohen, 337 U.S., at 546) (citations omitted).
Although the Court began with a broad general reference to "a double jeopardy claim," its specific discussion of the particular double jeopardy claim involved highlights differences between it and the one here. Here, the petitioner is challenging the merits of the charge against him; the elements of his insufficient-evidence claim are not completely independent of his guilt or innocence; the matters embraced within the trial court's order will affect the decision of the merits of the case. Thus, although broadly written, Abney is not broad enough to support the conclusion "that petitioner has raised a colorable double jeopardy claim appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. " Ante, at 322.
Because the essence of petitioner's claim is that he should be relieved of any additional jeopardy as soon as he is entitled to the entry of a judgment of acquittal, there is no more reason to allow immediate appellate review in this case than in one in which the defendant tried to appeal from an order denying a motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the prosecution's case. As I recently noted in a similar context, the availability of premature review would give defendants "every incentive . . . not only to delay eventual punishment, but to obtain leverage in plea negotiations." Justices of Boston Municipal Court v. Lydon, 466 U.S. 294, 334-335 (1984). Moreover, "[t]he speed and efficiency of the process would quickly be eroded if [interlocutory appeals] intervened between the first and second trials." Ibid. "[U]ndue litigiousness and leaden-footed administration of justice [is] particularly damaging to the conduct of criminal cases." DiBella v. United States, 369 U.S. 121, 124 (1962); see also Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.S. 323, 325 (1940). Further, while it is true that the postponement of appellate review, see n. 3, supra, will cause some hardship because defendants will have to proceed through second trials before having their claims reviewed, as Judge Wilkey correctly observed, that hardship is far less grievous than the Court's conclusion that such claims may never be reviewed. See ante, at 323, 326.
Page 337 226 U.S. App. D.C., at 346-347, and n. 30, 702 F.2d, at 1083-1084, and n. 30.