Opinion ID: 2356749
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prosecution for same offense after prior final judgment.

Text: The most straightforward application of the double jeopardy clause arises when a second prosecution is instituted against an individual who has been acquitted or convicted of the same offense in a prior trial. In the seminal case, Ball v. United States, 163 U.S. 662, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 41 L.Ed. 300 (1896), the Supreme Court held that a verdict of acquittal is a bar to a subsequent prosecution for the same offense. The Court stated that the constitutional prohibition is not against being twice punished, but against being twice put in jeopardy. 163 U.S. at 669, 16 S.Ct. at 1194. Cf. United States v. Sisson, 399 U.S. 267, 90 S.Ct. 2117, 26 L.Ed.2d 608 (1970); Fong Foo v. United States, 369 U.S. 141, 82 S.Ct. 671, 7 L.Ed. 2d 629 (1962). See also Note, Government Appeals of Dismissals in Criminal Cases, 87 Harv.L.Rev. 1822 (1974). [18] The problem arose in a different context in Price v. Georgia, 398 U.S. 323, 90 S.Ct. 1757, 26 L.Ed.2d 300 (1970), where the state attempted to retry an accused for murder after an earlier guilty verdict on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter had been set aside because of trial error. While the government is not precluded from retrying a defendant whose conviction is set aside because of error, [19] the defendant in Price had not been convicted of murder in the first trial. The first jury necessarily acquitted him on the greater charge when it returned a verdict of guilty on the lesser offense. The Court held that his retrial for murder violated the fourteenth amendment. The Court reached this conclusion notwithstanding the fact that in the second trial, the defendant was again convicted only of voluntary manslaughter. Price demonstrates that the double jeopardy clause is offended not by conviction but by trial and risk of conviction. [20] A particularly thorny problem in double jeopardy law is deciding when a second prosecution involves the same offense as a prior prosecution. [21] In Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), the defendant had been acquitted of robbing one of six men who were engaged in a poker game. Six weeks later he was brought to trial for the robbery of another participant in the poker game. The Court held that the double jeopardy clause mandated application of the rule of collateral estoppel. [22] The Court applied collateral estoppel in Ashe to hold that the second prosecution violated the fourteenth amendment. Three Justices would have gone further and held the double jeopardy clause requires that a prosecutor, except in limited circumstances, join at one trial all the charges against a defendant that grow out of a single criminal act, occurrence, episode or transaction. 397 U.S. at 453-54, 90 S.Ct. at 1199 (Brennan, J., concurring, joined by Douglas, J. and Marshall, J.). Mr. Justice Brennan, in his concurrence in Ashe, asserted that neither collateral estoppel nor the traditional tests for determining whether a subsequent trial is for the same offense provides sufficient protection against the modern prosecutor's ability to subject an individual to multiple prosecutions. Id. at 450-53, 90 S.Ct. at 1197-99. In an earlier opinion, Mr. Justice Brennan articulated the reason for his concern. The basis of the Fifth Amendment protection against double jeopardy is that a person shall not be harassed by successive trials; that an accused shall not have to marshal the resources and energies necessary for his defense more than once for the same alleged criminal acts. Abbate v. United States, 359 U.S. 187, 198-99, 79 S.Ct. 666, 673, 3 L.Ed.2d 729 (1959) (separate opinion of Brennan, J.). In Commonwealth v. Campana, 452 Pa. 233, 304 A.2d 432, vacated, 414 U.S. 808, 94 S.Ct. 73, 38 L.Ed.2d 44 (1973), reinstated on remand, 455 Pa. 622, 314 A.2d 854, cert. denied 417 U.S. 969, 94 S.Ct. 3172, 41 L.Ed.2d 1139 (1974), this Court recognized that the principal purpose of the double jeopardy clause is to prevent repeated attempts to convict an individual through a series of prosecutions and adopted the position urged by Mr. Justice Brennan in Ashe. We held as a matter of state law, that a prosecutor must bring all known charges against a defendant arising from a single criminal episode in a single proceeding. Finally, the Supreme Court has held that a juvenile court proceeding may place an individual in jeopardy, barring a subsequent criminal trial for the same offense. Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519, 95 S.Ct. 1779, 44 L.Ed.2d 346 (1975). In Breed, a seventeen year old was found to have violated a criminal statute after an adjudicatory hearing in juvenile court. The juvenile court subsequently ruled that the youth was unfit for treatment as a juvenile and ordered that he be prosecuted as an adult. The Supreme Court held that the second prosecution was barred by the double jeopardy clause. Mr. Chief Justice Burger, writing for a unanimous Court, reasoned that [b]ecause of its purpose and potential consequences, and the nature and resources of the State, [a juvenile] proceeding imposes heavy pressures and burdens  psychological, physical, and financial  on a person charged. The purpose of the Double Jeopardy Clause is to require that he be subject to the experience only once `for the same offence.' 421 U.S. at 529-530, 95 S.Ct. at 1786, citing United States v. Jorn, 400 U.S. 470, 91 S.Ct. 547, 27 L.Ed.2d 543 (1971) (plurality opinion); Price v. Georgia, supra, and Green v. United States, supra. These cases demonstrate that the double jeopardy clause prohibits a second trial for the same offense after final judgment is reached in a first prosecution. The Constitution bars the retrial itself, not merely conviction or punishment.