Another legal question spawned by a movie [double jeopardy]

[Bricker]

@Fubaya

Ok, that sent me on a google fest. My answer, and I’m no attorney, is still no, the movie was wrong.

Here a UCLA law professor sums it up:

Collateral estoppel means that you can’t relitigate an issue, even in another unrelated case. Once he was found not guilty of attempted murder, that is a fact that the court has decided and it stands as gospel truth. If they tried him for murder, the prosecution would not be allowed to argue that he killed her because it has already been found a fact that he didn’t try to kill her.

No need to look any farther than the SDMB:

@Bricker

The movie Double Jeopardy having been discussed above, I am resurrecting this thread because of a new release: Fracture, starring Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins. Spoilers for the movie follow below, so highlight at your own risk.

[spoiler]In Fracture, Hopkins’ character, Ted Crawford, is acquitted of the attempted murder of his wife; he shot her but she survives in a coma. He then uses his standing as next-of-kin to remove her from life support, and she dies. He reasons he’s safe from re-prosecution because of the double jeopardy clause.

However, new evidence comes to light - specifically, the bullet that was in her body and could not have been removed without killing her. The prosecutor, Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling), decides to charge Crawford with murder - a different crime than “attempted murder” - which theoretically dodges the double jeopardy problem. Bingo, unrepentant killer gets what’s coming to him.

Only… not.

In real life, Crawford would be safe from reprosecution because of Ashe v. Swenson’s collateral estoppel rule, discussed above. The original trial ended in the film with a directed verdict, which operates just as an acquittal would have. That means the state is collaterally estopped from re-litigating any element of the murder that they had tried, and failed, to prove in the attempted murder trial.
[/spoiler]

Detailed discussion of this without involving massive spoiler box use may not be possible.