Opinion ID: 4535378
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Scope of double jeopardy protections

Text: We now turn to whether the court properly denied Appellant’s motion to preclude retrial on jeopardy grounds. The federal Double Jeopardy Clause, see U.S. CONST. amend. V (stating no person shall “be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb”), applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. See Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 794, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 2062 (1969). It thus represents the constitutional “floor,” Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 388, 586 A.2d 887, 894 (1991), for purposes of Pennsylvania’s counterpart provision. Before September 1992, Pennsylvania’s double jeopardy protections had been viewed as coextensive with [J-65-2019] - 16 those of the Fifth Amendment in light of “identical textual and policy considerations.” Commonwealth v. Simons, 514 Pa. 10, 14, 522 A.2d 537, 540 (1987) (citation omitted); see Commonwealth v. Sojourner, 513 Pa. 36, 45 n.6, 518 A.2d 1145, 1149 n.6 (1986); Commonwealth v. Lively, 530 Pa. 464, 467, 610 A.2d 7, 8 (1992) (citing, inter alia, Commonwealth v. Kunish, 529 Pa. 206, 207, 602 A.2d 849, 849 (1992)). The Double Jeopardy Clause “protects a defendant in a criminal proceeding against multiple punishments or repeated prosecutions for the same offense.” United States v. Dinitz, 424 U.S. 600, 609, 96 S. Ct. 1075, 1080 (1976); see also United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. 117, 129, 101 S. Ct. 426, 433 (1980) (explaining that the Double Jeopardy Clause protects against a second prosecution after acquittal, a second prosecution after conviction, and multiple punishments for the same offense (quoting North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717, 89 S. Ct. 2072, 2076 (1969))). Among its purposes are to preserve the finality and integrity of judgments and to deny to the prosecution “another opportunity to supply evidence which it failed to muster in the first proceeding.” DiFrancesco, 449 U.S. at 128, 101 S. Ct. at 432-33 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Insofar as individual rights are concerned, the Clause protects a defendant’s interest in having his fate decided by his first jury. See Dinitz, 424 U.S. at 609, 96 S. Ct. at 1080. It is grounded on the concept that no person “should be harassed by successive prosecutions for a single wrongful act and that no one should be punished more than once for the same offense.” Commonwealth v. Starks, 490 Pa. 336, 339, 416 A.2d 498, 499 (1980) (citing United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 342-43, 95 S. Ct. 1013, 1021 (1975)). Still, federal jurisprudence has clarified that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not require the government to vindicate its interest in law enforcement through a single [J-65-2019] - 17 proceeding for each offense. See, e.g., Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 688-89, 69 S. Ct. 834, 837 (1949). Thus, retrial is generally allowed where the first proceeding ends in a mistrial or the initial conviction is set aside on appeal, see United States v. Jorn, 400 U.S. 470, 483-84, 91 S. Ct. 547, 556 (1971) (plurality); United States v. Tateo, 377 U.S. 463, 465, 84 S. Ct. 1587, 1589 (1964) (citing, inter alia, United States v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662, 671-72, 16 S. Ct. 1129, 1195 (1896)), unless the conviction is overturned due to evidentiary insufficiency. See Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 18, 98 S. Ct. 2141, 2150-51 (1978); Commonwealth v. Gibbons, 567 Pa. 24, 28-29, 784 A.2d 776, 778 (2001); see also 18 Pa.C.S. §109 (providing a statutory bar to retrial in some situations). Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 102 S. Ct. 2083 (1982), the limiting principle was expressed in terms of prosecutorial overreaching – that is, misconduct intended to provoke a defense motion for a mistrial or actions otherwise taken in bad faith to harass or unfairly prejudice the defendant. See Lee v. United States, 432 U.S. 23, 34, 97 S. Ct. 2141, 2147 (1977). The concept was applied as a double-jeopardy litmus by federal courts as well as this Court where the first proceeding ended before a verdict was reached, see, e.g., Jorn, 400 U.S. at 484, 91 S. Ct. at 556-57; Mitchell v. Smith, 633 F.2d 1009, 1011-12 (2d Cir. 1980), or where it resulted in an unsustainable conviction. See, e.g., United States v. Phillips, 600 F.2d 186, 187 (9th Cir. 1979) (per curiam); Starks, 490 Pa. at 341, 416 A.2d at 500; cf. Hawk v. Berkemer, 610 F.2d 445, 448 n.4 (6th Cir. 1979) (in dicta, stating that, after the reversal of a conviction based on an invalid guilty plea, double jeopardy bars further prosecution where the initial plea was illegal and arose from prosecutorial coercion involving bad faith or overreaching). In Kennedy the Supreme Court disapproved further use of the “overreaching” test, expressing that it was unworkable due to the lack of adequate standards. See [J-65-2019] - 18 Kennedy, 456 U.S. at 675, 102 S. Ct. at 2089. Instead, the Court held, the Fifth Amendment immunizes the defendant from retrial only where the government’s actions were “intended to ‘goad’ the defendant into moving for a mistrial.” Id. at 676, 102 S. Ct. at 2089. This Court adopted the Kennedy rule in Commonwealth v. Simons, 514 Pa. 10, 522 A.2d 537 (1987), again referencing that Pennsylvania’s protections were coterminous with those of the Fifth Amendment. See id. at 14, 522 A.2d at 540 (citing, inter alia, Commonwealth v. Hogan, 482 Pa. 333, 393 A.2d 1133 (1978)). Accordingly, Simons stated that, “henceforth double jeopardy will attach only to those mistrials which have been intentionally caused by prosecutorial misconduct.” Simons, 514 Pa. at 16, 522 A.2d at 540. In Simons, this Court noted that it had previously granted a new trial due to misconduct involving prosecutorial concealment of information that could have helped the defendant at trial. See id. at 12-13, 522 A.2d at 539. The Court found, however, that the Commonwealth had not acted in an attempt to provoke a mistrial, and hence, that the jeopardy bar was not implicated. See id. at 20, 522 A.2d at 542.