Court Opinion

ID: 9641942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:43:50.354135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:41.125721
License: Public Domain

Peters, J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion states that, upon conviction after a second trial, the defendants will have an adequate opportunity to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence in the first trial. If that challenge is successful, “they may not be retried thereafter.” I infer that this language is intended to indicate that the conviction on the second trial must then be set aside, no mat*211ter how much evidence of guilt was there adduced, because otherwise the double jeopardy claim could never be vindicated at all.
I have two difficulties with the approach taken by the majority. One is a minor, but practical, problem. It will not be easy, factually or analytically, on appeal after a second conviction, to raise the sufficiency of the evidence at the first trial. Arguably that minor difficulty should give way to the unquestionable undesirability of allocating scarce judicial resources to a full appeal after every mistrial. The second difficulty strikes me as insuperable, however. As we have only recently reiterated in State v. Spendolini, 189 Conn. 92, 454 A.2d 720 (1983), the constitutional protection against double jeopardy affords to a defendant “a right not to be tried.” See United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850, 860n, 98 S. Ct. 1547, 56 L. Ed. 2d 18 (1978); Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 659, 97 S. Ct. 2034, 52 L. Ed. 2d 651 (1977); Price v. Georgia, 398 U.S. 323, 331, 90 S. Ct. 1757, 26 L. Ed. 2d 300 (1970). A double jeopardy claim is entitled to adjudication before rather than after retrial. See Abney v. United States, supra. Since, as the majority opinion in this case concedes, the defendants have stated colorable double jeopardy claims under Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S. Ct. 2141, 57 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1978), I do not understand how the defendants can constitutionally be deprived of their right to be heard on these claims now. Vindication of their claims after another trial can never restore to them their right not to be twice placed in jeopardy.
I therefore must dissent from the position that we have no jurisdiction to hear the defendants’ *212double jeopardy claims on this appeal. Since the merits of their claims about the sufficiency of the evidence may reach this court at another time, I limit this dissent to the jurisdictional question.