Double_Jeopardy

Double Jeopardy Cassandra Kennedy Kaplan University LS: 305 Professor James Kent May 15, 2012 The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, “In essence,…protects criminal defendants against three things: (1) a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal; (2) a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction; and (3) multiple punishments for the same offense”( U.S.C.A. Const.Amend. 5). Basically, this means that a defendant cannot be charged and convicted of the same offense, which is simple enough, however it is not that cut and dry. There are certain situations in which this can happen without double jeopardy being violated. The first scenario in which a person can be tried twice for the same crime without double jeopardy being violated is demonstrated in Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82(1985). Larry Gene Heath was tried and convicted in both Georgia and Alabama for the murder of his wife however Heath’s Fifth Amendment rights under the Double Jeopardy clause were not violated. Heath crossed state lines from Alabama into Georgia to hire and pick up the people who would kill his wife. Heath then brought the two men back across the border into Alabama where he had the men kidnap his wife. His wife was found murdered in her car which was in Georgia. In Georgia, Heath pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of “Malice Murder” and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. In Alabama, Heath was charged with and found guilty of “Murder During Kidnapping” and was sentenced to death. Heath appealed his conviction in Alabama inferring that his Fifth Amendment rights had been violated under the Double Jeopardy Clause by his being convicted of the same crime twice. The Alabama Supreme Court held that “successive prosecutions by two states for same conduct were not barred by double jeopardy clause”( Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82(1985)). In this case, Double Jeopardy was not violated because although he was convicted for the same crime, the murder of his wife, each state brought separate charges against him- malice murder and murder during kidnapping. The second scenario where a person can be tried twice for the same crime without double jeopardy being violated is when a person breaks a law that is within both a state and federal jurisdiction. An example of this would be interstate murder for hire. Under the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 Federal Murder for Hire statute “anyone who travels in or causes another person to travel in interstate or foreign commerce or who uses or causes another person to use the mail or any facility in interstate or foreign commerce, with the intent to commit a murder in violation of any state law or federal law, the consideration of which is the receipt of money or anything of pecuniary value, commits the offense of murder-for-hire”( http://www.victormartinezlaw.com/newsletters/criminal-law/federal-laws-regarding-murder-for-hire/). This means that if a person from one state goes into or calls someone in another state with the intention of hiring someone to murder someone else, this person has now committed a federal crime. If the person actually commits the murder, the person that hired the actual killer can be charged under both state and federal law for that murder. This can happen because the state and federal government are separate sovereignties. The charge under state law would be “murder” and the charge under federal law would be “murder for hire”, therefore because the charges are not the same, the defendant can be tried and convicted by both the state and federal governments. When conducting my research, I used Westlaw in the Kaplan Library. For my first search, I looked up the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. To do this, my first step was to click on the “Law” tab upon entering Westlaw. Once there, on the left hand side of the screen, there are “Shortcuts” and options to “search these sources”. Under this was a link “Content List”, which I clicked. I was redirected to another page with other links. One of these links was “Statutory Regulations and Legislative Materials”. I went into this link and ended up on a page that had a link for “United States Code Annotated”. I clicked to go to this page. From there, I was able to access “U.S.C.A Constitution”. On that page, I clicked the “Template” tab and in the section that said “Const. Amend.” I entered “V”. This brought up results for the Fifth Amendment. I scrolled down until I saw “Double Jeopardy”, which was the fourth option and I clicked on it. My next search was for the case Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82(1985). When I was on the main page for Westlaw, I clicked on the “Law” tab. From there, on the left hand side of the screen, I was able to search for the case by citation, in which I entered “474 U.S. 82”. This brought up the case. My next search I again clicked on the “Law” tab. I then clicked on the option for “Basic Search” I then typed in the search terms “dual sovereignty” and “capital punishment”. I scrolled down the search results and found that the eleventh result was also Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82(1985). Another search I again clicked on the “Law” tab on the home screen of Westlaw. I chose “Advanced Search”. I searched for “dual sovereignty”, the exact term “capital punishment” and “federal government”. The databases I searched in were “All Federal Cases”, “All State Cases”, and “United States Code Annotated”. When the search results were brought back I scrolled down to U.S.C.A Const. Amend. V-Double Jeopardy. From there, I scrolled down to “Separate Sovereignties”. Under this section were subsections which I clicked on the subsection “separate sovereignties-Federal and State Prosecutions”. REFERENCES http://www.victormartinezlaw.com/newsletters/criminal-law/federal-laws-regarding-murder-for-hire/ U.S.C.A. Const.Amend. 5 Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82(1985)