Legal eagles, I’m sure you’ve heard the “what if” scenario:
A man fakes his own death by, somehow, framing someone for his murder. The alleged murderer is convicted and serves a prison sentence. Upon his release, he somehow uncovers the original deception and finds the alleged victim alive and well.
Since one cannot be tried for the same crime twice (“double jeopardy”), can he now murder the liar in cold blood without penalty?
Sounds like a movie I once saw… now what was it called…? 
It’s not double jeopardy, because he’s being charged with two seperate crimes. Think about if someone robs you twice. Can they not be charged the second time because they’ve already been punished for robbing you the first time?
Of course, Alereon, but you cannot murder somebody twice.
I suspect that the exact legal position here is that a miscarriage of justice took place originally, for which the wrongly condemned man is eligible for compensation, but anything transpiring past this point is simply a “new” crime. I was merely wondering what might be argued by legal experts.
I think that if someone faked their own death and framed you for it and you served time and then found out he was alive and you killed him, you’d have a perfect insanity defense. If that wouldn’t make you crazy, nothing would.
Murder indictments are usually quite specific – you’re not just tried for murdering Fred McGillicudy, but for murdering Fred McGillicudy on March 23, 2002. In short, the second “murder” is a separate crime, just as two different robberies of the same person are separate crimes.
Dex, even if the two robberies are mutually exclusive, such that if you performed one you could not have performed the other?
Hollywood fiction notwithstanding, the correct legal answer is that double jeopardy would not bar the prosecution for the subsequent murder.
For two acts to be the same crime for the purposes of double jeopardy, they must be the same in law and in fact. They are the same in law when each and every element of the second crime must also have been proven to secure a conviction for the first crime. They are the same in fact if they allege a common set of facts.
In this case, presumably the crimes are the same in law - both first degree murder. But they are not the same in fact - they are alleged to have taken place at different times and dates.
Certainly the prosecutor, judge, and/or jury may harbor some sympathy for the mistaken conviction that started this whole mess. But whatever form that sympathy might take, a dismissal on former jeopardy grounds is not a possibility.