Court Opinion

ID: 9465484
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:47:39.032945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:12.354525
License: Public Domain

*1195RONEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur under the law as it now appears to have been solidified in United States v. Hitchmon, 587 F.2d 1357 (5th Cir. 1979). The result is questionable. As Judge Coleman has set forth, the double jeopardy plea had no merit and was both frivolous and dilatory. The district court, correctly discerning this, put the defendant to the trial scheduled long prior to the double jeopardy motion or notice of appeal. The defendant has been proven guilty of the crimes charged in an errorless trial by the very court that should try him.
In Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 2034, 52 L.Ed.2d 651 (1977), it was decided that a defendant can get a review of his double jeopardy plea before being put in jeopardy in a second trial. But the defendant here has already suffered all the consequences that Abney sought to avoid. He has been through a “second” trial before review of the double jeopardy claim. Now, in the name of Abney, he goes through those consequences yet again. And everyone else goes with him, the Government resources, the court, court personnel, and the witnesses, who may be the most unnecessarily imposed upon of the cast of characters because of these legal machinations. I think the Court could work out a rule that would properly balance the interests Abney seeks to protect against the interest of the judicial system in being efficient, nondilatory, and reflective of practical common sense. If the law of the circuit did not previously foreclose such a decision by this panel, however, Hitchmon does. I therefore concur in the decision of the Court.