The case is United States v. Franklin, 704 F.2d 1183; 1983 U.S. App. LEXIS 28908 (10th Cir. 1983).
He was convicted of “violating 18 U.S.C. § 245 (b)(2)(B) (1976) by shooting and killing two black men who had been using a public facility.”
Much of the appeal focused on the admissibility of evidence of racial motivation. Franklin claimed it wasn’t relevant because he denied neither that the crime was racially motivated nor that he was a racist–he denied committing it.
While we’re having this discussion, it’s probably worth noting that their are occasions when a defendant has been acquited in a criminal trial but later found guilty of wrongful death in a civil trial. This has happened in high profile cases like those against O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake.
Civil cases don’t result in an adjudication of guilt, so it’s not quite right to say they were found guilty. But you are right; in both cases, the defendants were found to be a proximate cause of their victims’ deaths. As a result, they were liable for damages.
Ok, so there are times when you can charge a ordinary Joe with violating someone else’s civil rights, but there also specific charges that that can only be leveled against someone acting under some state or federal umbrella, which is probably what Diogenes the Cynic was saying.
Just curious, but why? What was wrong with the DJ in the movie “Double Jeopardy”?
The basic premise was, she couldn’t be tried for killing the same guy twice.
The first time he wasn’t killed. Therefore there was no crime to be committed, and the first verdict is null and void. Since the same guy can’t be killed twice, the premise is flawed. In the real world the first verdict would have been dismissed and charges brought up for the real murder.
Again, I’m definitely not the expert here, but my understanding is this: Protection from double jeopardy says nothing about killing the same guy twice, it says you can’t be prosecuted for the same crime twice.
Killing the same guy months or years later, in a different time and place, is definitely not the same crime. The fact that the guy who everybody thought was already dead happens to wind up really dead is just coincidence. It may be grounds to get the previous conviction overturned, but it’s not anything like the same crime.
As I now understand it, new evidence can’t be used to reinstate a charge after an acquittal, but it can be used to bring additional charges which may happen to be related to the one of which the defendant was acquitted. Correct?
So, the hypothetical (former) defendant in the OP couldn’t be re-tried. However, if he had said, “I did it, and I killed Joe Smith, too” he might be charged with perjury for lying about the first murder and with Joe Smith’s murder based on the second half of his statement.
Hijack, but what if the day after the Not Guilty verdicy, we discover not only the murder weapon with B’s blood and A’s fingerprints, but also a 1,000,000 dollar transfer from A’s bank account to Juror C? Can A be tried again?
It’s an unsettled question. My guess is that the prosecution might make the attempt under the same theory as the aforementioned Aleman case, that a corrupt juror means that the defemdant was never in jeopardy.
Both boxing and Ultimate Fighting are sanctioned by state athletic commissions in the places where bouts are held. As long as the commissions’ rules are followed and the particpants are willing, criminal charges wouldn’t apply.
I disagree. That may in fact be the defense in a particular case, but it’s not what “not guilty” means. Any given defendant might be saying “I didn’t do it,” it might mean “I did it but it wasn’t/shouldn’t be illegal” as you suggest, or "I’m not sayin’ whether I did it or not. But the only thing “not guilty” means in every case is “Prove it.”
I’m not convinced. With one paid-off holdout juror, the best the defendant can expect from the payoff is a hung jury, in which case he could be retried. Unless that particular juror is exceptionally persuasive and convinces the rest of the jury to acquit, when they wouldn’t have done so otherwise? I dunno. That seems a lot more speculative than a paid-off judge, who can do all sorts of things to mess with the state’s case in terms of “guiding” voir dire, exclusion of evidence, a directed verdict, etc.
I think I would agree. How do you define “corrupt juror”? What if one juror is a writer
and sees a lucrative book if the defendant goes free. If they were very persuasive, they
could influence a not guilty verdict. What about the O.J. trial? There were allegedly
several jurors that influenced the not guilty, for what appears to have been political
revenge.
Is that any more, or less, “corrupt” than a juror who is bribed ot threatened?