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Fifth Amendment: Affording Society's Interest Greater Protection in Double Jeopardy Analysis

NCJ Number
123627
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 80 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1990) Pages: 1112-1127
Author(s)
J J Sikora Jr
Date Published
1990
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the United States Supreme Court's 1988 decision that the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause did not necessarily bar retrial correctly analyzed the principles that underlie most jurisprudence regarding double jeopardy.
Abstract
In Lockhart v. Nelson, the State trial court erroneously admitted evidence against the defendant, without which the government lacked sufficient evidence to support an enhanced sentence. The Supreme Court reversed lower court judgments, concluding that the basis for reversing the enhanced sentence rested on the "trial error" of erroneously admitting a pardoned conviction rather than on insufficient evidence. Thus, the Court held that retrial was permitted where the totality of the evidence admitted by the trial court, whether erroneously or not, would have been sufficient to sustain a conviction. The Court thereby adequately served the government's law enforcement interest by assuring the government a fair chance to punish a defendant whose guilt is clear. The Court also effectively balanced the defendant's and society's interests, recognizing that the double jeopardy clause adequately preserved the defendant's main interests at both the trial and appellate levels. 119 footnotes.

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