Opinion ID: 693375
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: History of the Concept

Text: 26 Analysis turns next to the merits of the motion to dismiss. But before engaging in that discussion, it is useful for purposes of that analysis to make a somewhat detailed examination of the historical development of the Double Jeopardy Clause. That Clause found in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: [N]or shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.... The phrase life or limb has a quaintly archaic ring--striking the ear somewhat oddly, perhaps, in its application to a civil sanctions case--yet resonating profoundly with its historical origins. 27 While the concept of double jeopardy first emerged in the English common law nearly seven hundred years before its adoption in the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights, its roots lie even deeper in antiquity. Known to the Greeks and Romans, see Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 795, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 2063, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969), the notion of double jeopardy is found in the Digest of Justinian promulgated in the year 533, see Barry Nicholas, An Introduction to Roman Law 48 (Oxford Univ. Press 1962). There the concept is expressed as The governor should not permit the same person to be again accused of a crime of which he had been acquitted. Jay A. Sigler, Double Jeopardy: The Development of a Legal and Social Policy 2 (Cornell Univ. Press 1969) (quoting the Digest of Justinian, Bk. 48, Title 2, n. 7). The canon law had also long recognized that even God does not punish twice for the same act. See Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121, 152 n. 4, 79 S.Ct. 676, 696 n. 4, 3 L.Ed.2d 684 (1959) (Black, J. dissenting). 28 These early civil and canon law roots from which, over the centuries, the modern notion of double jeopardy grew began to be evident in the common law of England during the twelfth-century reign of King Henry I (1100-1135), when the need for double jeopardy protection was particularly marked because punishment upon a second conviction for almost any offense was death or mutilation. Hence, the historical derivation of the Fifth Amendment phrase in jeopardy of life or limb is from a gruesomely literal source. See Sigler, Double Jeopardy at 4-5. 29 The doctrine gained a more secure foothold in the common law during the reign of King Henry II (1135-89), arising out of the king's close relationship to Thomas a Becket, his Lord Chancellor and later Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket, using his high church office, challenged Henry II's Clarendon Articles, which made the clergy, already subject to trial and punishment in ecclesiastical courts, subject also to being convened before lay judges. See Sir Matthew Hale, The History of the Common Law of England (Univ. of Chicago Press 1971). The controversy between the two erstwhile friends resulted in Becket's murder, and his subsequent canonization. But in 1176 Henry II conceded St. Thomas' point that no man ought to be punished twice for the same offense, thereby firmly fixing the notion of no double punishment in the common law. See Martin L. Friedland, Double Jeopardy 5 (Oxford Univ. Press 1969). 30 The important aspect of the rule that for modern day purposes limits the sovereign's power to prosecute did not become a feature of double jeopardy in England until the end of the thirteenth century. Prior to that time criminal prosecution frequently depended on suits by private persons. The practice of initiating criminal prosecution by private appeal was a survival of Anglo-Saxon law, and was not wholly abolished in England until 1819. Sigler, Double Jeopardy at 8; Friedland, Double Jeopardy at 8. During the thirteenth century indictments by the Crown existed in parallel with private prosecutions. Sigler, Double Jeopardy at 8. A judgment of acquittal or conviction in a suit brought by a private person barred that person's further suit, and judgment on an indictment by the Crown barred further suit by the Crown. But double jeopardy principles did not prevent the Crown from bringing further suit in cases where a private person's suit had resulted in an acquittal. By the fifteenth century acquittal on a private appeal, after trial by jury, barred indictment by the Crown, and an acquittal on an indictment, generally barred further prosecution for the same offense by appeal. See Friedland, Double Jeopardy at 8-9. Thus, the right of private appeal fell into disuse, and repeated prosecution for the same crime began to be eliminated. Sigler, Double Jeopardy at 8-9. 31 The two English common law commentators who most influenced colonial American jurisprudence were Sir Edward Coke and Sir William Blackstone. Blackstone in his Commentaries penned the oft-quoted statement: The plea of autrefois acquit, 1 for a former acquittal, is grounded on the universal maxim ... that no man is to be brought into jeopardy of his life, more than once, for the same offense. 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 329 (Univ. of Chicago Press 1979). During the seventeenth century when Coke's writings appeared, double jeopardy began to assume the outline of its present form. See Friedland, Double Jeopardy at 11. Yet even in the writings of Coke and Blackstone the protection is narrower than in contemporary American doctrine. Sigler, Double Jeopardy at 16-17. Coke believed that double jeopardy was not an absolute, but a conditional protection, depending on the quality of the prior acquittal. Id. at 18. Blackstone noted that the concept was limited to felonies, and that for the doctrine to apply there was a requirement for either a guilty verdict or an acquittal. Id. at 20. 32 That double jeopardy in America is a more fundamental right than in England may be traced back to early colonial times. The Massachusetts Bay Colony extended its protection to all criminal prosecutions and to civil trespass as well. In New England's first established code of laws, the Body of Liberties, that Colony provided: No man shall be twise sentenced by Civill Justice for one and the same Crime, offence, or Trespasse. The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, No. 42, in American Historical Documents, 1000-1904, at 70, 77 (Harvard Classics ed., P.F. Collier & Son 1910). James Madison, who fathered the doctrine in the Bill of Rights (1791), proposed that it read: No person shall be subject, except in cases of impeachment, to more than one punishment or trial for the same offense. See Friedland, Double Jeopardy at 28, 30. The Supreme Court later stated as a settled principle of the common law that no person may be twice punished in the same court on the same facts, for the same offense, or as Coke has it, 'Nemo debet bis puniri pro uno delicto.' No one can be twice punished for the same crime or misdemeanor.... Ex Parte Lange, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 163, 169, 21 L.Ed. 872 (1873).