There is no Reader’s Digest version, best I can tell. Bricker does a really good job at explaining the issues in that longer thread, and I would hesitate to try to summarise his excellent commentary.
The one comment I would add is that part of the issue is that the common law model of a court trial is not the same as a civil law model. In the common law model, the trial verdict is the end of the proceedings. An appeal is a separate proceeding, in another court.
In the civil system, there is not that sharp demarcation; the equivalent term there is “process”, not trial, and the findings of the first court are not necessarily final within that system; the process can continue in another court.
The common law concept of double jeopardy is based, not surprisingly, on the common law trial system, where jeopardy is determined in the trial court. That concept of a of clear ending does not translate so well to a court system where proceedings are not final in the first court.
Why would the US consider the Knox case “double jeopardy”? She was convicted at her original trial. Which is what Bricker has stated multiple times in many threads.
There are two SCOTUS cases on that issue from what I can find
Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459
and Bryan v US 335 US 552.
But there was a second trial, wasn’t there? In which she was acquitted. Now, it’s a case of the *accuser *successfully seeking review of an acquittal, which I believe is covered by double jeopardy.
Trial Court: Convicted
Intermediate Appeals Court: Reversed
Ultimate Appeals Court: Set aside the reversal and remanded for new trial.
I am not an American Lawyer. But looking at the dicta in the SC cases, if relief is obtained by review subsequent trials are permitted no matter what the nature or standard/scope of review.
Generally an acquittal means that the trier of fact is not satisfied that the case was proved while a reversal by a higher court means that there were errors which individually or cumulatively made the conviction unsafe, these could be procrdural mistakes, misreading of the record, insufficiency of evidence etc.
And, the term acquittal is itself a common law term, meaning a final disposition by the first court. That concept does not fit well into analysing a process in the civil law system, because as soon as you use it to try to describe a step in the civil law process, you are inadvertently importing related concepts from the common law. This is one if the hazards of comparative law discussions: one must be careful not to try to analogise between the two systems, because it can distort the understanding of the issues.
Similarly, the term “trier of fact” used by AK84 in the previous post is a common law term. Courts in the civil law system don’t draw that distinction, because it is so closely tied to the common law concept of a trial court with final verdict. In the civil law system, in the process that can span different courts, facts can be re-examined or supplemented on appeal.
The danger of relying on common law terminology when looking at the civil court system in a case like this is that it unconsciously drives the debate, so it really becomes a statement, “This court system produced a result that wouldn’t happen in ours, so it must be wrong.”
Nope. Generally true, to be sure, but there are instances in which it’s not. Most notably, when the review and reversal turn on a lack of sufficient evidence – that is, as a matter of law, if the trial court did not have enough evidence to convict, then double jeopardy bars retrial.
However, the warnings in Northern Piper’s posts about terminology are well taken.
That it wouldn’t happen in ours is not some random quirk, it is a deliberate design decision. By holding a person in legal limbo you are doing harm to them, and the government has a moral responsibility to minimise that harm.
Yeah, despite assurances to the contrary, there’s that tiny nagging doubt that somehow, someway, the shenanigans of the Italian judicial system will find a way to revive this stinking corpse.
What if you were the victim of a literal witch hunt by a prosecutor who sees Satanists everywhere, enabled by “progressive” morons in your own country who froth at the notion of taking an American down a peg? This case isn’t just about “someone got acquitted of a charge.”