 |
Title: Double jeopardy
This essay sample examines one of the major topics of law practice. This is a free example of law essay created by one of Essay-Paper.net staff members for law school students. Feel free to use this law school essay in your research with proper reference only.
[...]
Double jeopardy is a term in law and means a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being charged with a offense for a second time, after having already been judged for the same offense. In the USA, Great Britain, Canada and Australia it is also a constitutional right. Therefore, a double jeopardy denotes that a person cannot be reconvicted for the same offense based on the same behavior. If a person kills a person, he cannot be judged of murder twice for the same offense (Wayne, 2001, p. 67).
[...]
Nor can he be convicted of two different offenses based upon the same conduct unless the two offenses are defined so as to prohibit conduct of significantly different kinds. Thus, a person cannot be charged of murder and manslaughter for the same killing simultaneously, but he can be condemned of murder and robbery (as these are absolutely different offenses) if the murder has happened because of the robbery. The double jeopardy forbids the repeated accusation of the same case.
[...]
This fact is considered in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution: “nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” It limits prosecutorial abuse by the state in the second accusation for the same offense. Most state constitutions also guarantee this right to defendants appearing in state court. Even in states that do not guarantee this right in their laws, the defense against double jeopardy must still be afforded to criminal defendants because the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause has been made applicable to state proceedings via the doctrine of incorporation (Wayne, 2001, p. 95).
[...]
Under this law, the Supreme Court has ruled in a series of cases that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee to the citizens of every state the right to exercise certain fundamental liberties. It should be mentioned that this concept refers to an offence but not to an act that gives rise to an offense. There exist three major defenses that the double jeopardy consists of: defense from being judged twice for the same offense after a palliation; defense from the second trial after a accusation; and defense from being awarded a penalty several times for the same offense.
[...]
The reason for the existence of the double jeopardy is to prevent state prosecution of a person by repeated pursuits based on the same charge (Hickey, 1998, p. 61). The taxpayers give many financial resources and thus, the government could condemn any person by charging him several times until the attorney recovered a judgment. Thus, the Fifth Amendment protects citizens from this injustice.
[...]
Order your law essay at Essay-Paper.net today.
|
|
