LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Double Jeopardy: Defendants
built 263 days ago
Double jeopardy ... does not attach if the later charge is civil rather than criminal in nature, which involves a different legal standard. Acquittal in a criminal case does not prevent the defendant from being the defendant in a civil suit relating to the same incident (though res judicata operates within the civil court system). For example, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of a double homicide in a California criminal prosecution, but lost a civil wrongful death claim brought over the same victims.
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The colonists were ... familiar with how narrowly the right against double jeopardy had been defined in England. During the constitutional convention James Madison sought to enlarge the definition by making the right against double jeopardy applicable to all crimes not just capital felonies. Yet Madison's original draft of the Double Jeopardy Clause was perceived by some as too restrictive. It provided that "No person shall be subject . . . to more than one punishment or one trial for the same offense" (United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S. Ct. 1892, 104 L. Ed. 2d 487 [1989]). Several House members objected to this wording, arguing that it could be misconstrued to prevent defendants from seeking a second trial on appeal following conviction.
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In England, the protection against double jeopardy was considered "a universal maxim of the common law" (United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 340, 95 S. Ct. 1013, 1020, 43 L. Ed. 2d 232 [1975]) and was embraced by eminent jurists Henry de Bracton (1250), Sir Edward Coke (1628), Sir Matthew Hale (1736), and Sir William Blackstone (1769). Nonetheless, the English double jeopardy doctrine was extremely narrow. It was afforded only to defendants accused of capital felonies, and applied only after conviction or acquittal. It did not apply to cases dismissed prior to final judgment, and was not immune from flagrant abuse by the Crown.
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After considerable litigation -- and contradictory rulings -- on the issue across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court finally dealt a near-fatal blow to the double jeopardy defense in administrative-criminal cases. In Hudson v. United States, -- 522 U.S. 93 -- (1997), defendants appealed convictions for using their positions as bank officers to secure fraudulent loans three years after paying civil fines to a federal government agency for the same conduct. They based their double jeopardy claim on United States v. Halper. Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the majority, stated:
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The Fifth Amendment constitutional rule protecting a person from being subject to "double jeopardy" is binding upon all states under the Due Process Clause. The double jeopardy rule applies to criminal cases. This means, simply, that once the state prosecutes a person for a crime, the state may not do so a second time if the defendant is found not guilty. Although there are limits on this principle, it is exceedingly rare for a person to be tried, found not guilty, and tried again for charges arising out of the same facts.
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[A]bandoning double jeopardy rule will make the police and the prosecution less keen to pursue evidence with the appropriate diligence. After all, if you can charge an accused again and again, you don't necessarily have to get it right the first time, do you? In fact, why bother to look for someone else who might have committed the crime after a defendant is acquitted? Better to simply pursue the first defendant and bring him to trial again.
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