SCOTUS on Double Jeopardy
by: Ryan • June 12, 2014 • no comments
This spring, in the unsigned Supreme Court opinion, Martinez v. Illinois, the Court was obligated to point out: “There are few if any rules of criminal procedure clearer than the rule that jeopardy attaches when the jury is empaneled and sworn.” That has been very clear, it said, since at least 1963. That, the opinion added, is a “bright line” rule.
And, the opinion went on, it was just as clear that, once Martinez had been acquitted by the trial judge, he could not be subjected to retrial. That, it remarked, is “perhaps the most fundamental rule in the history of double jeopardy jurisprudence.”
What Martinez got, it noted, was “a textbook acquittal.”
What made this case unusual? Or more precisely, how did the case get to the Supreme Court? The prosecutors had claimed no jeopardy attached because they never put on a case after the jury was sworn.
It took a long time to get the case to trial, for one reason or another, but things started to move in July 2009. But the prosecutor sought several delays, because it could not find witnesses Binion and Scott. Finally, the judge ordered the trial to begin in May 2010. The judge was exasperated, commenting that the two complaining witnesses were “convicted felons…well known in Elgin.”
Insisting on starting, the judge then was notified by the state’s prosecutors that they would not take any part in the trial. A jury was chosen and sworn in, but still the state held back. Given repeated opportunities to call witnesses, the prosecutors each time said they were not participating.
