The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment protects
a person from a second prosecution for the same offense, or multiple punishments for the
same offense, by the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment protects against
Double Jeopardy in state courts. The question then becomes: what happens if a state and
the federal government have identical laws? Is it Double Jeopardy if a person is tried
in a federal court and a state court for breaking these identical laws? This issue is
known as “dual sovereignty”. According to the case of Bartkus v. Illinois, The Supreme
Court stated that Double Jeopardy does not apply in such a situation. This is known as
the Dual Sovereignty exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause. In this case, the Court
made a distinction between "same conduct" and "same offense". For example, if a person
robs a bank, breaking both a federal and a state law, the same conduct that violated
federal and state law is seen as two different
offenses.
Collateral Estoppel is defined as “A doctrine by
which an earlier decision rendered by a court in litigation between parties is
conclusive as to the issues or controverted points so that they cannot be relitigated in
subsequent proceedings involving the same parties.” The Courts have said that
Collateral Estoppel does not apply in a dual sovereignty case for two reasons. First,
the Courts have said that Collateral Estoppel only applies in a final judgment between
the same parties. State and federal governments are two separate parties. Second, the
Courts have said that Collateral Estoppel is embodied in the Double Jeopardy Clause, so
if Double Jeopardy does not apply in a situation, neither would Collateral
Estoppel.
No comments:
Post a Comment