Supreme Court declines to overturn exception to double jeopardy

[Geee]

Washington Examiner

The Supreme Court left intact a century-old exception to the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause that permits a state and the federal government to prosecute a person for the same criminal offense. 

 

The court ruled 7-2 in declining to overturn the separate sovereigns doctrine, with Justice Samuel Alito delivering the opinion of the court. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

The case before the high court involved a challenge to the Supreme Court’s “separate sovereigns” doctrine, an exception to the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause, which states no one can be “subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life and limb.” Under the separate sovereigns exception, however, a person can be prosecuted in state and federal courts for the same criminal conduct because the states are separate sovereigns. 

 

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