Opinion ID: 848659
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Federal Double Jeopardy Jurisprudence

Text: The United States Supreme Court determined in Bartkus v. Illinois [2] that the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause [3] allows successive prosecutions by the federal and state governments. But Bartkus rests on a questionable foundation. The opinion is premised on a concept of dual sovereignty that the United States Supreme Court began to recognize in dicta starting in the mid-nineteenth century. [4] The doctrine was not applied at common law. It was first utilized by the Court in 1922, in United States v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377, 43 S.Ct. 141, 67 L.Ed. 314 (1922). In 1937, the United States Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not incorporate the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause against the states. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S.Ct. 149, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937), overruled by Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969). In several earlier cases, the Court had allowed multiple state and federal prosecutions for the same offense. It had permitted the federal government to prosecute an offense for which a state court had already obtained a conviction. Lanza, supra at 382, 43 S.Ct. 141. Later, it had allowed states and the federal government to criminalize the same conduct. Westfall v. United States, 274 U.S. 256, 258, 47 S.Ct. 629, 71 L.Ed. 1036 (1927). Then, in 1959, the United States Supreme Court in Bartkus allowed a state prosecution to proceed after the defendant had been acquitted of the charged offense in a federal court. It found that the federal Double Jeopardy Clause did not prohibit state prosecutions for state criminal offenses. The reasoning of these cases was based on the argument that the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause was inapplicable to the states. Indeed, this was explicitly noted in Bartkus , in which Justice Frankfurter stated his view that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply the first eight amendments to the states. Bartkus, supra at 124, 79 S.Ct. 676. In 1969, the Supreme Court rejected the idea that the Fifth Amendment did not apply to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. In Benton v. Maryland , [5] the Court held that the Fifth Amendment protection is a fundamental ideal in our constitutional heritage, and that it should apply to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Benton, supra at 794, 89 S.Ct. 2056. Because Bartkus was based on the belief that the Fifth Amendment had no application to the states, Benton undermined the reasoning of Bartkus. [6] See Smith v. United States, 423 U.S. 1303, 1307, 96 S.Ct. 2, 46 L.Ed.2d 9 (1975) (Douglas, Circuit Justice). The weak underpinnings of the Bartkus line of cases is highlighted when one considers the common law on which our system of constitutional jurisprudence is based. As Justice Black noted in his vigorous Bartkus dissent, and as legal scholars continue to note, [7] the English common law did not recognize the concept of dual sovereignty. Justice Black pointed out that protection from double jeopardy is part of the common law of nations. Bartkus, supra at 154, 79 S.Ct. 676 (Black, J., dissenting), citing Batchelder, Former Jeopardy, 17 Am. L. R. 735 (1883). In fact, international law recognizes that multiple prosecutions by separate nations violate fundamental human rights. [8] Post- Bartkus cases also raised questions regarding whether the dual sovereignty doctrine on which Bartkus was based would survive unscathed. For instance, in Elkins v. United States , [9] the Court rejected the dual sovereignty doctrine in the context of search and seizure. There, the Court held that where state authorities obtained evidence during a search that would have violated the Fourth Amendment, the evidence must be excluded at the federal level. Likewise, in Murphy v. Waterfront Comm. of New York Harbor , [10] the Court refused to apply the dual sovereignty doctrine. It held that a state may not constitutionally compel a witness to testify when that testimony might be used against him in a federal prosecution. These decisions rejecting the application of the dual sovereignty doctrine in other contexts, coupled with the Benton decision, prompted comment by many courts, including the Cooper Court. The question was whether the dual sovereignty doctrine would continue to be applied in the double jeopardy context. More recently, though, the United States Supreme Court has held that successive prosecutions by individual states do not violate the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy protection. Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82, 106 S.Ct. 433, 88 L.Ed.2d 387 (1985). In Heath , the Supreme Court not only resurrected the dual sovereignty doctrine, it extended the doctrine to successive prosecutions by different states. No matter how flawed the reasoning of Bartkus, then, the Supreme Court has validated it. It has verified that, under current federal law, the dual sovereignty doctrine allows for successive prosecutions when they are initiated by different sovereigns. This Court clearly does not have the power to overrule United States Supreme Court precedent in interpreting the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution. On the other hand, we are not bound to adopt that Court's analysis of the federal constitution when we interpret the Michigan Constitution. This is especially true when the analysis is flawed. While the Court's decision regarding a similar constitutional provision provides guidance, the rights of Michiganians are not tied to what the Court chose to do with a federal constitutional provision. Although the Michigan Supreme Court commented in Cooper on the direction it thought the United States Supreme Court was headed, it grounded its decision on an interpretation of the Michigan Constitution. This was fitting. When determining the rights guaranteed to people in Michigan under the Michigan Constitution, our Court is not bound by later interpretations given the federal constitution by federal courts.