Court Opinion

ID: 9465597
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:50:47.124199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:15.996240
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
With all respect to my colleagues, I do not think this case can be decided without reference to the important issue of federal constitutional law which it presents. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution says in part, “nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. . . . ”
Here, two witnesses were allowed to testify that appellant (at times and places totally unrelated to the instant charge) performed acts which (if the testimony was believed) constituted the crime of forcible rape. Mich.Comp.Laws Ann. § 750.520. The constitutional problem is posed by the fact that in both of these instances that identical charge had been .filed by each of these two witnesses, appellant had been subjected to a jury trial, and the jury had found him “not guilty.” To allow these same complainants to testify to these same events to buttress another complainant’s charge of the same offense committed against her appears to me to allow appellant to be put in jeopardy twice in each such instance. Certainly the state should be estopped from relitigating the forcible rape issue, as was done here. Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970).
I dissent.