Currier v. Virginia
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 22, 2018 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 22, 2018
- Term
- October Term 2017
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Gorsuch
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice KENNEDY, concurring in part. I join Parts I and II of the Court's opinion, which, in my view, suffice to resolve this case in a full and proper way. There is a strong public "interest in giving the prosecution one complete opportunity to convict those who have violated its laws." Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 509, 98 S.Ct. 824, 54 L.Ed.2d 717 (1978). The reason that single opportunity did not occur in one trial here was because both parties consented to sever the possession charge to avoid introducing evidence of petitioner's prior conviction during his trial for burglary and larceny. Petitioner acknowledges that by consenting to severance he cannot argue that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars the second trial. See Brief for Petitioner 9-10. He instead contends that, even though he consented to severance, he preserved the double jeopardy protections applied in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), protections that, in Ashe, were a bar to relitigation of factual issues adjudicated in a previous trial. The Double Jeopardy Clause reflects the principle that "the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as…
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