Constitutional Considerations, Essay Example

The prohibition of double Jeopardy is covered by the 5^th Amendment of the US Constitution. A person cannot be put on trial for the same crime twice or made to be a witness against himself. The precise wording in the US 5^th amendment varies and this is an approximate translation.  In US Criminal law it is not considered uncommon for a single criminal act to constitute many different crimes. It does however create the danger of being subject top different prosecutions for the varying criminal offences that arise out of the single act and as such having to serve consecutive sentences for those acts proven guilty in a court of law.  (Kahn, A.D. 1962).  In the case of People v. Villareal (2011) the Supreme Court held  [ Where defendant was convicted of two counts of attempt murder and one count did not allege a distinct act that supported the offense, the surplus count and sentencemust be vacated under the one-act, one-crime doctrine ] –  (Appelate Court of Illinois, 2011).

This can get tricky at times and in the case of People vs. Negre (2011), we find the defendant being charged with possession of a firearm without a license and this was vacated on account of personal error.  The second charhge where the defendant was in possession of a large amount of an illegal substance resulted in the defendant being sentenced to 14 years imprisonment; based upon unlawful possession of a controlled substance. The defendant also had previous criminal convictions.

In the UK legal system the double jeopardy system has been removed.  This led to the case of People vs. Mark Weston (2010) who was initially acquitted of the murder of  Vikki Thompson. New forensic evidence from DNA analysis created a re-trial. The new forensic evidence included blood, semen and DNA analysis and just four hours after the retrial the jury was unanimous in the guilty of murder verdict. The advancement in Forensic Science has made it possible to revisit previous criminal acts.

Works Cited

Appelate Court of Illinois. (2011). People vs. Villareal. Chicago: Appelate Court of Illinois.

Kahn, A. D. (1962). Double Jeopardy, Multiple Prosecution, and Multiple Punishment: A Comparative Analysis. California Law Review, pp. 853-865 .