5th Amendment

Double Jeopardy

(double jeopardy)

Forbids prosecution of the same offense twice.

Double jeopardy” is one of those constitutional concepts simple enough to

have established itself in the American lexicon: If a person is acquitted of a

crime, the government may not prosecute him again on the same facts.

But simple cases rarely make it all the way to the Supreme Court. So the

justices opened their new term Tuesday with arguments in a complicated tale

of alleged bribery involving a Puerto Rican businessman and a senator in the

local legislature. The two men had been acquitted of one bribery charge, were

convicted of another, and then saw that conviction thrown out on appeal

because the jury had been improperly instructed about what was necessary to

convict.

Now what?

Lisa S. Blatt, a Washington lawyer representing Juan Bravo-Fernandez and

Hector Martinez-Maldonado, said her clients cannot constitutionally be

further prosecuted. The government does not get another shot once the jury

has acquitted the men of the underlying travel and conspiracy charge, she

said.

“The government should bear the consequences when overlapping charges

produce split verdicts of acquittals and invalid convictions,” she said.

But Assistant Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the justices that

Bravo-Fernandez and Martinez-Maldonado are free only from further

prosecution on the charge on which they were acquitted. She said the men

want to turn that into “complete immunity” and “prevent retrial of the very

count that the jury itself convicted them on.”

Of the two lawyers, Blatt faced the more skeptical questioning from the

justices.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was representative. The jury did not find the

men innocent, she said.

“It said yes to bribery on one; no to bribery on the other,” Ginsburg said. “And

it might have just decided that conviction of the predicate offense, the bribery,

was enough, and that the government had laid it on too strong by adding the

conspiracy and the travel count.”

The facts of the case are that Bravo-Fernandez was president of a security firm

and that the government alleged that he bribed Martinez-Maldonado, a Puerto

Rican senator. The government alleged that Bravo-Fernandez took Martinez-

Maldonado to a boxing match in Las Vegas and that first-class airfare and

accommodations were payment for Martinez-Maldonado’s support of

legislation that benefited the security firm.

They were charged with bribery as well as with conspiracy and traveling to

commit bribery under a federal statute.

After the jury acquitted them of the conspiracy and traveling charges- and

convicted them of bribery, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st

Circuit overturned the bribery charge.

The panel said the judge told the jury that it could convict if the trip was a

“gratuity” for the legislation, but that was wrong. The law requires that the

boxing trip be “in exchange” for legislation action, a quid pro quo.

The government says it should get another attempt to prove the bribery charge

under the different standard.

But the men say the acquittals by the first jury mean that the Double Jeopardy

Clause of the Fifth Amendment forbids further prosecution.

Although the appeals court threw out the conviction, the panel also cited a

Supreme Court precedent and said the government was free to try again.

Blatt said that was wrong, pointing out a different Supreme Court case. She

said a vacated conviction is worthless. “This court has never used a vacated

conviction for any purpose, period,” she said.

But Justice Elena Kagan said it was hard to believe that the jury’s guilty

verdict meant nothing. “The vacated conviction surely does tell us something

about what the jury did do or what the jury didn’t do,” she said. “It’s part of

the factual picture.”

But if the jury convicted under the wrong standard, Blatt said, the information

is useless.

The remedy for using the wrong standard, Prelogar said, is a retrial. The error

“doesn’t signal that the government necessarily failed to prove its case,” she

said, adding that “there’s still a strong societal interest in ensuring that the

government has an opportunity to enforce the criminal laws against that

person.”
 A Paraphrase of Robert Barnes’ “Supreme Court
Opens With A Complicated Case of Double
Jeopardy”
Bravo-Fernandez, a president of the security firm was charged of bribing a senator. It was
alleged that Bravo- Fernandez took the senator to a boxing match with first class
accommodations which were payments for the senators support legislation that would benefit
the security firm. They were charged with bribery and conspiracy/ traveling to commit bribery,
but later the jury acquitted them of conspiracy/traveling charges, and were just convicted of
bribery. Fernandez does not want to be tried again because he’s already acquitted of some
charges. Constitutionally there cannot be further prosecution. The government does not get
another shot once the jury has acquitted them of conspiracy and bribery.

Assistant solicitor general, Ms. Prelogar, said the men said the men want to prevent retrial of the
exact count that the jury convicted them on. The government says it should get another try to
prove the bribery charge, but under a different standard. The men say that the acquittals means
that the Double Jeopardy Clause forbids further prosecution. The appeals court said the
government was free to try again but Blatt, one of the lawyers didn’t agree with that. Blatt said it
was wrong, and a vacated conviction is worthless. She argued if the jury convicted under the
wrong standard, the information is useless.

The article is a reflection of the fifth amendment because the two men convicted of bribery feel
like the jurys wanting to try them again is Double Jeopardy. The article discussed a dispute
between the two men and jurys and the main question is would this be a double jeopardy if a
second trial took place.