Imagine this hypothetical situation; a man is found guilty of murder and serves time in prison. Some time later new evidence indicates he is innocent and he is then released. Some time after this further evidence is found which proves he was guilty all along.
Can the man be re-tried and sent back to prison or would the Double Jeopardy rule prevent this?
If this ever happened in real life, the District Attorney may avoid it by charging him with a different, lower offense. So that if he is convicted of this, the sentence for that added on to the time he has already served for the murder conviction will total something similar to the typical time served for murder.
i think having gone through all that process is sufficient punishment for him (had it been something besides murder.)
Stupid question time: assuming that the prisoner in the OP was released ahead of his scheduled release date, why couldn’t they just reimprison him on the original sentence/conviction, and rescind any pardon that might’ve been granted?
It must be phrased as a question! 
This is what I was wondering, they would need to have another trial though to present the new evidence, i’m just not sure if this counts as being tried for the same crime twice or not.
I really don’t believe that’s legitimate.
The double jeopardy rule isn’t a “Get out of jail free” card. There is always something else they can charge you with.
But not for the same incident. That’s the whole point of double jeopardy. It’s not a “get out of jail free card,” but rather a “government can’t keep hassling the courts until they convict you no matter how many times they lose” right.
You might want to look up that last word. Just a suggestion, mind you.
And the whole “actual innocense” thing where you can produce evidence after the trial is an exception to the “finality of judgments” principle of common law countries. Basically, the way that the courts operate is that issues should not be relitigated over and over whenever a new witness is found or new evidence discovered, but need to be closed definitively.
This ws the plot for some movie: A husbanf sets up his disappearance to make his wife look guilty of his murder. She is convicted and does the time. The day she is released from prison, he shows up, anf she kills him.
Trying her again would be redundant. She already did the time.
I see I wasn’t the only person who came into this thread thinking it was about the game show.
In the UK we do have double jeopardy,
But, you can’t be convicted on the same evidence unless the original trial was defective in some major way.The standard for retrial on the same charge is so high that there have been very few.These are the only three since this change to the law came into force.
That might fly in an Ashley Judd movie, but real Double Jeopardy doesn’t work that way. The murder she was originally convicted and served time for is not the same crime she commits when released, even if it is the same type of crime and the same victim. She would (rightly) be prosecuted again for the second murder.
If she had robbed him twice, you wouldn’t argue she gets the second one “free” just because she was convicted of the first one.
I think that the comment was intended to be a joke.
My understanding is that the state basically gets one chance to convict you of a specific crime. They can’t retry you because new evidence was found.
Which makes sense. There’s always going to be new evidence to be found. If the state could keep retrying the same case over and over again, it could keep somebody in court forever. So the burden is placed on the state to present its best case the first time.
Another misconception is that new evidence leads to an automatic release. This not the case. Once somebody is convicted of a crime, the burden of proof is placed on him to have the decision overturned. It isn’t enough for the new evidence to show he might be innocent (which should work at the initial trial) - the new evidence has to essentially prove he’s innocent beyond any reasonable doubt. It’s not quite as high a standard as the state has (the possibility of appeal exists) but a defense, like the prosecution, is still advised to make its best case the first time.
I don’t believe this is the case. I am not a lawyer, but the definition of double jeopardy involves the crime, not the act. If you and a partner plot a murder, and you pull the trigger, you are guilty of murder. If for some reason, you aren’t convicted, the state can also charge you with conspiracy.
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/d075.htm
I believe it is better under the law to file all the charges at once, and then keep trying them until a conviction results. But I don’t think it is required. The state can keep bringing new charges until one sticks. The old “tough on crime” thing.
True in the case of conspiracy, untrue in general.
Lesser included offenses generally merge with the greater offense. You can’t convict me of murder and assault and battery if I beat someone to death. You can convict of other crimes, but not “lesser included offenses.”
Conspiracy is generally considered to always be a separate offense from the crime itself, and thus it is a crime which can always be handled separately.
I don’t think that example is true. In order to be tried for a seperate offense, it has to be something you can be found guilty of even though you were found innocent of the original crime.
So you couldn’t be found guilty of a conspiracy to commit a crime (which essentially is forming an agreement to commit a crime with somebody else) when you were found innocent of committing the crime. Legally, you didn’t commit a murder so logically you can’t have committed a murder with somebody else.
Knew it wasn’t about the show, but surprised it took so long for the joke.