As I said, as a political issue. If you think the government is abused its power by harassing people via the court system, you elect somebody else into office.
You have to understand that even the cases where there are two trials, one for state crimes and another for federal crimes, or one in ciriminal court and a second in civil court, are quite rare, though they tend to make a lot of news when they occur.
I was hoping for a mopery hypothetical.
Yes, I suspect one of the issues with multiple trials would be that if the defendant wasn’t charged with eevrything they knew about at the time, they can’t suddenly come back and charge them with additional crimes. There’s some sort of principle about a “speedy trial”. Not sure what the rule is in teh USA, but it’s come up often in Canada. The prosecutor cannot just sit on a pile of facts and dole out the charges. Anything that was known about when the first trial happened and not charged would be tossed, especially if it related to the same event(s).
After all, the prosecution can’t just dig up a cold case, look for some other technicalities, and charge the guy again just as he’s getting out of jail the first time. What they might do is assume they have enough to put the guy away for good with one set of charges and not worry about the others that might be weaker.
However, if new evidence comes to light about a new crime, they might suddenly lay additional charges. In one movie, the couple was acquitted of killing a guy by sabotaging his airplane, thanks to some clever legal footwork, even though obviously guilty. After the trial is over, the police are cleaning up the old barn the plane crashed into (why wasn’t it done earlier) and find the body of a hobo buried under the ashes; he’d been sleeping there and the plane crash killed him too - cue the new murder charges.
What the OP is asking is the ROdney King stuff - Those cops were charged with “violating his civil rights” when they were acquitted of the beating. Since the federal and state courts are totally separate, these charges do not have to run together, and waiting until the other case has finished is apparently legit.
So the OP is right - under technicalities, the feds can “get even” with anyone who beats a state rap by using the federal court to retry the charges in many cirumstances, if they can twist federal law to make a charge stick. Technically it’s not double jeopardy but obviously it works that way.
The obvious solution is to require the federal charges to be laid within a reasonable time from when state charges are laid (“Speak now or forever hold your peace”) instead of waiting, but that would require the feds or the state to relinquish some power, so it ain’t happening soon.
In the recent US past, Klu Klux Klan members, and others who did not like people of a certain color, in the south would get away, literally, with murder because the jurors (jury of his peers) would not convict them. These were actions by the People of the State of X. So, the federal government tried them under federal laws because they denied those they killed of their civil liberties. They couldn’t get the death sentences, but in most cases, they were convicted and sentenced to long terms. A fair and just result IMHO.
I don’t think this was brought out before: In a criminal prosecution, the defendant must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt - not a shadow of doubt, BTW -, but in civil proceedings, only a preponderance of the evidence is necessary. That’s how OJ was found liable in a civil proceeding after being found “not proven guilty” in a criminal action. A fair and just result IMHO. Unfortunately, under Florida laws, most of his large estate, especially his grandiose land estate and his pensions, are exempt from attachments.
For double jeopardy to apply, not only must the parties be the same, but the issues must be the same. In civil suits, that would be res judicata. If the parties are different, but the issues are the same, that would be collateral estoppel. That would not apply to criminal actions vis a vis civil actions since the burden of proof is different: beyond a reasonable doubt vs. preponderance of the evidence. It also would not apply if different jurisdictions brought criminal actions because the crime alleged to be committed would have violated different laws: state laws vs. federal laws, for example.
These kinds of actions can be taken against police officers and others acting in an official capacity. But there’s no “violated your civil rights” crime that the feds can charge some random schmoe with.
For instance, the Los Angeles policemen who beat up Rodney King were acquitted by a local jury of assault, but they were convicted of civil rights violations and sent to a federal prison.
Incidentally, the federal government CAN execute people for civil rights violations under SOME circumstances. This subject came up back when James Byrd was murdered in Jasper, Texas. The city of Jasper hoped, at one point, to wash its hands of the affair and let the federal government try the killers under civil rights law. One reason that idea was shot down was that Byrd’s killers would NOT be eligible for the death penalty under federal law.
As I recall, federal law made a special case for people who killed civil rights activists. That is, the Klansmen who murdered Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner WOULD have been eligible for the death penalty, as would the creep who killed Medgar Evers, because those killers targeted people engaged in civil rights -related activities.
But James Byrd was NOT a civil rights activist- he was just an ordinary black man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hence, his killers would only have faced a long prison sentence, at most, if tried under federal law.
But these separate crimes are not “fundamentally the same”. Unless you fired one gunshot where the bullet went through all 8 people one after the other. (Rather a super-powered bullet, that.)
Otherwise, you separately fired your gun multiple times, hitting & killing different victims each time. Those are all murders, but murders of different people, occurring at different times (though possibly only a few seconds apart). Legally, that’s no different from someone like Ted Bundy, who killed over 30 people over a 6 year period.
No. Collateral estoppel also requires that the parties be the same. Nor is res judicata a precise analog to double jeopardy, because double jeopardy also prevents a lesser included offense from being charged; res judicata applies to the precise claim, the precise cause of action. Collateral estoppel is closer, since it applies to a particular issue, which in the criminal context would be an element of the crime. But double jeopardy also has rules that don’t have a good analog in either phrase – for example, the concept that jeopardy attaches at a bench trial when the judge begins hearing evidence, or at a jury trial when the jury is sworn.
So the bottom line is that double jeopardy is sui generis, unique, with no precise analogs in the civil context.
This is untrue. A prosecutor’s job is not to attempt to get a guilty verdict against the defendant. A prosecutor is legally and ethically obligated to prosecute only people he believes are actually guilty. A prosecutor has broad discretion not to brfing charges, he isn’t obligated to prosecute anyone the cops arrest.
It is true that a defense attorney has a professional ethical obligation to help his client, whether or not his client is actually innocent or not. However, this obligation is not absolute, and a defense attorney cannot make false statements in court, or allow others to make statements he knows are false.
No prosecutor would actually make the statement you imagine, because they’d probably get fired and disbarred for it.
I’m pretty sure there’s a basic justice rule that you cannot hold off on charges and play themone by one. You can’t have someone go through 8 trials when you can combine the charges together in 1 trial.
Now if the guy held up a liquor store, and then a week later murdered someone, they may or may not have 2 separate trials on those totally unconnected unrelated charges; but it’s simpler to combine all charges to 1 trial (I think) and get the whole thing settled instead of scheduling the defendant between 2 separate trials.
Of course in Bundy’s case, they had a whole country and multiple jurisdictions so they can’t combine everything.
And they will avoid charging someone on a weak case - if they can show the judge, later when they do charge, that they did not believe they had sufficient grounds to get a conviction on that charge at the time, so why waste the court’s time; but if no new evidence shows up, why would you then go ahead and charge the guy later?
Here’s a question for the OP that might help to clarify it in the UK context.
Suppose an Englishman travels on a British ferry to Calais. When he gets off the ferry in France, the French customs officials discover he’s carrying large quantities of illegal drugs. They charge him with importing illegal drugs into France, he’s convicted, serves his time in a French prison, and then is deported to England.
When he arrives in England, he’s promptly charged under UK law with conspiring to smuggle illegal drugs internationally. The British police have found that he was part of a large-scale drug-trafficking ring, based in England, and he took part in the planning and operation of the ring’s activities, including his own failed attempt to smuggle drugs into France from England.
Does the OP think double jeopardy should bar the English authorities from prosecuting him? The traditional legal analysis would say that’s not double jeopardy. He’s alleged to have committted two separate offences, against the laws of two sovereigns: the United Kingdom, and France. There’s certainly overlap in facts underlying both sets of charges, but that’s not enough to trigger double jeopardy.
The US situation is quite similar - there are two different sovereigns involved, the state and federal governments. What’s different from the hypothetical I’ve given is that they’re not two separate national states, but under US constitutional law they are two separate sovereigns, so double jeopardy doesn’t bar each of them from bringing charges based on the same facts.
And, to put the criminal/civil issue into the English context, I don’t think there is any bar to a successful civil action in England, following a failed criminal prosecution. (I’m certainly open to correction by any of our fellow Dopers learned in English law, but I think that’s the case.) So the OJ situation could happen in England as well.
But… they are two separate crimes- possession and conspiracy. Since the drugs were found on him in France, that’s the crime there. There’s no proof he had them on him while in England (an accomplice could have slipped him the drugs while the boat was docking).
I guess, could both places charge him with conspiracy to traffic? Presumably, all the conspiracy happens in England, so the French law would have to say that if the person wer to be charged with conspiracy, it would be because drugs were planned to be ending up in France. (The USA definitely has this law. Noriega never stepped foot in the USA, but was charged regardless because the drugs were supposed to…)
In that case, would suspect the court would say “tough bananas, you broke two countries’ laws, you could face two countries’ courts.” Same principle as beating Rodney King (state law - assault) and depriving him of his civil rights (federal).
One would hope that this were the case, but you do hear prosecutors saying things like this. In fact, Chris Christie, the now governor of New Jersey was interviewed by “This American Life” about a very shaky terrorism case he prosecuted as a U.S. attorney. There were allegations that the defendant, Hemant Lakhani, really had no real ability to traffic in arms and the whole thing was all pretty much entrapment. When confronted with this question, he said:
So from his point of view, his job wasn’t to get to the truth but rather to punish bad people. My concept of justice is pretty much just the opposite.
While at least in theory I agree with you, the basic concept of justice for pretty much all of time has been as per the quoted. Sad, perhaps, but generally the case. Law is more about social order (if not necessarily social control) than justice. Generally, prosecutors don’t know and don’t much care whether the defendant did something: they haven’t the time and they see so much guilt I doubt the thought really occurs to them. They usually won’t move on cases they don’t think they can win, but I doubt very much that they consider whether the allegations are true ot not. Real exoneration occurs far more often on Law and Order than in real life. Sad, perhaps… but true.
Do you know many prosecutors?
I’ve only ever done defense work, but I have run into plenty. While some are like you mention, the overwhelming majority care whether the defendant did what they were accused of doing.
Yes, actually, I do. It’s all part of the same alleged crime and he’s already been prosecuted and, in this case, convicted.
Look at it the other way around: suppose the French courts found him Not Guilty. Should the British courts be able to have another go?
ETA: and suppose the ship were Russian; should Russia be able to prosecute him too?
Let’s put it another way.
If a defense attorney is morally certain that his client is guilty, he will and should continue to defend his client zealously.
If a prosecuting attorney is morally certain that the defendant is innocent, he will and should drop the charges.
The problem is some prosecutors who have a rather odd idea of moral certainty.
In reality most cases aren’t prosecuted based on a moral certainty of innocence or guilt. The prosector must move ahead of there is evidence of a crime being committed and reasonable cause to suspect a defendent. And mistakes will happen. The biggest problem might be prosecutors who won’t accept the notion that a guilty verdict was incorrect, and will block attempts at appeal and retrial even when evidence removes the moral certainty of the conviction.
It may be one course of conduct, but it’s not the same crime. He violated the laws of England and the laws of France, and they each have a sovereign right to enforce their own laws against criminal defendants.
It’s not another go to Britain - it’s their first go. Why should French law bind British courts?