The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides important protections for people who are accused of crimes. One of the most important is the protection against being charged twice for the same crime. This is commonly known as the double jeopardy provision.
Without this provision, if prosecutors failed to win a conviction against a defendant, they could just bring the same charges again and hope to find a more sympathetic jury the next time around. In fact, without the protection against double jeopardy, because the government has great resources at its disposal, prosecutors could theoretically just keep bringing charges over and over again until they got the result they wanted. Individual defendants would have neither the time nor the money to keep fighting for their freedom under these circumstances.
However, while it’s important, the double jeopardy provision is limited. In this blog post, we will take a closer look at the uses and weaknesses of double jeopardy protection.
State and federal charges
Many crimes can be charged under both state and federal law. For instance, the federal government outlaws certain drugs, with its own laws specifying the penalties for those convicted. Meanwhile, Indiana also has laws prohibiting these same drugs, and these laws have their own requirements and potential penalties.
The double jeopardy provision means that if you have been acquitted on Indiana drug charges, the state of Indiana cannot bring the same charges against you for the same incident. However, it’s possible that you could still face federal charges stemming from the same incident. And, if your case involved alleged crimes in both Indiana and Kentucky, you can be prosecuted there under Kentucky law without triggering double jeopardy protection.
Note also that double jeopardy protection would not prevent Indiana from bringing the same charges against you if you are found with illegal drugs a few months later
Acquittal
In the examples above, we discussed what could happen after you were acquitted of Indiana drug charges. This means that a jury rendered a verdict of not guilty. However, not every jury trial ends with a verdict. In some cases, for various reasons, a judge declares a mistrial.
The protection against double jeopardy applies only to cases in which the defendant was acquitted. This means if your Indiana drug trial ends in a mistrial, the state can bring the same charges against you involving the same incident.