hi yes that old conversation seemed to disappear medeis removed it citing a policy about threats of harm as you indicated i reviewed it after this deletion the op said something like geez if i had to do life in prison i'd rather die or i'd rather kill myself or some such medeis took that as a suicide threat and did the threat of harm removal the policy cited states something like take all threats seriously don't assume that the threat is a joke i did not think it applied to that particular thread but in picking and choosing my battles this is not one of them anyone including me might say i'd rather die than serve life in prison in fact most people would say that and i don't think that constitutes a threat of suicide particularly by the way given the fact that i or the op did not in fact receive a life sentence a silly deletion back to double jeopardy we seem to disagree and i do not have the wherewithal to engage in legal research at the moment yes it is my understanding that when a new trial is ordered everyone starts from scratch from square one i am sure we both recognize that many things can happen in an appeal they are rarely cut and dry they are rarely black and white but in the cut and dry case of new trial is ordered it is my belief that the prosecution starts with a clean slate and that nothing is off limits i say this as a general rule perhaps the death sentence has some extra special rules associated with it but even that i am suspect of in your case where the defendant is actually acquitted on one charge of course no retrial can occur on that charge but again it depends on the appeal i am quite certain that the defense did not appeal the acquittal i am sure he appealed the rest of the trial which did not favor his client so in other words the charge acquitted assault and battery in your example is not even under consideration in the appeal an appeal usually has several points being appealed not just one and the justices review each point one by one so in your hypothetical case the defense would not be complaining about i e appealing an acquittal that went in their favor they would be appealing the other things that transpired in the trial so the final order of the justices might read a new trial is ordered with respect to the robbery charge or some such now do you have a case to cite that supports your contention thanks