I thought that under some circumstances someone could be re-tried if there was new evidence that didn’t exist at the time of the first trial. Convictions have been overturned when new evidence (e.g., DNA analysis) became available. Wouldn’t the confession count as new evidence?
It doesn’t work the other way. A conviction may be overturned if a new trial is granted. But only the defendant can request a new trial. The prosecution only gets one bite at the apple. If you are found not guilty the prosecution cannot bring the charges again. The one exception I recall is a corrupt judge who took a pay off. SCOTUS granted the prosecution a new trial. Their reasoning was that since the judge had been paid off the defendant was never really in jepordy.
Acquittal stands as an absolute bar to re-trial for the same crime. If A is tried for murdering B, is acquitted, and the day after the verdict the police discover the murder weapon with B’s blood and A’s fingerprints, a signed, dated confession from A and a videotape of A committing the murder, A still goes free for the murder. The prosecution gets one bite at the apple. There is no appeal of a Not Guilty verdict.
I would say it’s the way of saying “I am not guilty of the crime of which I am being accused”, e.g. I’m on trial for murder - not guilty could mean “sure I killed the guy, but it wasn’t murder, it was self-defense”.
Sure, it would be new evidence.
Post-acquittall new evidence only helps a convicted defendant. The state can’t retry you even if the US President, the entire Supreme Court and Chuck Norris go to the DA and tell him they saw you do it. Of course, the US President could send you to Gitmo and Chuck Norris would roundhouse kick you to death before you could commit the murder, but we’ll leave those realities out of the case.
Actually, if the entire Supreme Court witnessed a crime, could they testify?
I assume they could.
What would happen if you appealed to the Supreme Court? Would they all have to recuse themselves? Who would hear the case?
What about Mel? I realize you are a person of few words, but in this case I think you need to elaborate a bit more.
Ignatow was charged with mudering his fiancee and found not guilty. A year after the acquittal, new evidence was found, including photgraphs of the murder. Ignatow subsequently admitted to the crime. He was charged with perjury for lying to the FBI during their investigation, and served five years.
The crime took place in Kentucky, and the original trial was circa 1991.
(bolding mine)
Don’t fuck with Chuck!
Yeah. I knew all that. And if I didn’t the link I quoted had all that information in it. What I was asking, since the Ignatow case simply illustrates what I and others have been saying in this thread, is what possible relevance did it have to the discussion.
Here is a book about the Ignatow case. It tells the whole sad story in horrifying detail.
I’m no expert, and maybe this doesn’t apply, but I recall a case that seems to contradict this.
In the early 1980s, in Salt Lake City, Utah, a white man shot two black men who were jogging through a local park. It was big news at the time, and a topic for discussion in my family as my parents lived only a couple of blocks from the park.
I don’t recall the particulars of why, but he was first charged in federal court of violating the civil rights of the two men he killed. Later, he was charged in state court for murder (and I think convicted in both courts).
A little googling brings me the man’s name: Joseph Paul Franklin.
Maybe some of our legally knowledgeable dopers can comment on restrictions on charging a person in federal court with violating someone’s civil rights?
The murderers of Emmett Till did exactly that, and were never charged with anything
Um, well, it’s an actual example of the scenario posed by the OP. How is it not relevant?
Also relevant is the Harry Aleman case. He was acquitted of murder in 1977, but it was later discovered that he had bribed the judge to fix the trial. The Fedeal Appeals Court ruled that because the first trial was a sham, Aleman had never been in jeopardy in the first place, so a re-trial was allowed. This is the only exception to the double jeopardy rule in US law, and as far as I know, Aleman is the only person to whom it has been applied.
Also, I believe that recent legislation in Great Britain has eliminated the concept of double jeopardy, allowing a retrial after acquittal in the UK if new evidence is uncovered.
Barbarians 
This can happen if the two jurisdictions are dual sovereigns, like state and federal governments, or two state governments. Say I stood in Texas and shot a guy in Okalahoma, and he dies an hour later in new Mexico. At common law, the cause of action against me arises in the place where the fatal force inpinges on the body, in this case Oklahoma. However, all three states are free to write statutes in which I would be guilty of murder in all three, and I could be tried by all three.
The SCOTUS case on point is Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82 (1985). Heath hired two men to kill his wife, who was nine months pregnant; they kidnapped her in Alabama and killed her in Georgia. He pleaded guilty in Georgia in exchange for a life sentence. Alabama susequently indicted him for murder during a kidnapping, and he received the death penalty. The Court ruled that each state had the right to criminalize and exercise jurisdiction over Heath’s actions, and it didn’t violate double jeopardy for each to prosecute him for a single course of conduct.
Here is an article: BBC NEWS | UK | Double jeopardy law ushered out
Aleman v. Judges of Circuit Court, 138 F.3d 302; 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 4034 (7th Cir. 1998). Petitions for rehearing and certiorari were denied.
That’s also the guy who shot Larry Flynt, I think.
The police officers in the Rodney King case were tried under 18 USC § 242, Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law. That particular statute does require a state actor. Franklin, on the other hand, was tried under the general criminal civil rights statute, 18 U.S.C. § 245, Federally Protected Activities. Basically, the federal prosecutors claimed that Frankiln shot Urban League President Vernon Jordan to prevent him from using a public accomodation. It didn’t work, though, and Franklin was acquitted. He was later convicted on a civil rights violation for the shooting deaths of two black men, but I don’t know the particulars of that case.