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Gamble v. United States

danarhea

danarhea

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Holding: The dual-sovereignty doctrine – under which two offenses are not the “same offence” for double jeopardy purposes if prosecuted by separate sovereigns – is upheld.

Judgment: Affirmed, 7-2, in an opinion by Justice Alito on June 17, 2019. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice Ginsburg and Justice Gorsuch filed dissenting opinions.
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Trial by a Federal Court and by a State Court for the same offense, known as dual sovereignty, has been upheld, and is not considered double jeopardy.

This opinion is going to affect everybody, from Paul Manafort and others in the Trump administration, who were convicted on Federal charges, all the way down to the little guys (ie, you and me, should we end up in a similar situation).

What is strange about this opinion is the strange bedfellows on both sides. Majority opinion was written by Alito, with Conservatives and Liberals alike joining it. The 2 dissenters are Ginsburg and Gorsuch. Who would have thunk it?

So what do you think about the opinion, which was handed down today?

Gamble v. United States - SCOTUSblog
 
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Trump's gonna be mad. This was one of the reasons he stacked the court.
 
danarhea said:
Trial by a Federal Court and by a State Court for the same offense, known as dual sovereignty, has been upheld, and is not considered double jeopardy.

This opinion is going to affect everybody, from Paul Manafort and others in the Trump administration, who were convicted on Federal charges, all the way down to the little guys (ie, you and me, should we end up in a similar situation).

What is strange about this opinion is the strange bedfellows on both sides. Majority opinion was written by Alito, and Conservatives and Liberals alike joining it. The 2 dissenters are Ginsburg and Gorsuch. Who would have thunk it?

So what do you think about the opinion, which was handed down today?

Gamble v. United States - SCOTUSblog
Click to expand...

I see it as a way to keep trying one individual in different venues for the same crime until he is convicted or bankrupt. It’s not like they have the power to require all states to re-try federal trials. On the contrary, it is just going to be used on certain people with high name recognition.
 
Hamish Howl said:
Trump's gonna be mad. This was one of the reasons he stacked the court.
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Yea, SCOTUS stuck a needle in Trump's pardon balloon today. What surprised the hell out of me was the voting.
 
danarhea said:
Yea, SCOTUS stuck a needle in Trump's pardon balloon today. What surprised the hell out of me was the voting.
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Yeah, I didn't see that one coming at all. I figured it would be right down the line, with Roberts being the swing.
 
chuckiechan said:
I see it as a way to keep trying one individual in different venues for the same crime until he is convicted or bankrupt. It’s not like they have the power to require all states to re-try federal trials. On the contrary, it is just going to be used on certain people with high name recognition.
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Not really. The man who went to SCOTUS was convicted in state court of a weapons violation. After he was convicted, the Feds filed charges too. He was a little guy with no name recognition.
 
danarhea said:
Trial by a Federal Court and by a State Court for the same offense, known as dual sovereignty, has been upheld, and is not considered double jeopardy.

This opinion is going to affect everybody, from Paul Manafort and others in the Trump administration, who were convicted on Federal charges, all the way down to the little guys (ie, you and me, should we end up in a similar situation).

What is strange about this opinion is the strange bedfellows on both sides. Majority opinion was written by Alito, with Conservatives and Liberals alike joining it. The 2 dissenters are Ginsburg and Gorsuch. Who would have thunk it?

So what do you think about the opinion, which was handed down today?

Gamble v. United States - SCOTUSblog
Click to expand...

I'd say this negates any past or future rhetoric about "the Supreme Court ruling based on politics".
 
chuckiechan said:
I see it as a way to keep trying one individual in different venues for the same crime until he is convicted or bankrupt. It’s not like they have the power to require all states to re-try federal trials. On the contrary, it is just going to be used on certain people with high name recognition.
Click to expand...

Used by whom? Different sovereigns, different prosecutes, different courts and officials.
The double jeaopardy clause is meant to prevent a prosecutor or official(s) from using their authority to target and harass a person.
With different sovereigns that’s not the case.
 
Included is the "revised" opinion...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-646diff_ifjm.pdf

While it is nice to see something other than a 5-4 split ideological interpretation narrowly upholding or striking something down, in this case 7-2 decision resulted in an inverse problem. A split ideological interpretation in the decent itself, one from Gorsuch and one from Ginsburg.

It is all going to come down to interpretation of dual sovereignty rule.

In the case that brought this to the Supreme Court in the first place all that really happened is Gamble accepted a plea deal in Alabama to a charge the Federal Government thought should have resulted in a longer sentence, so they charged him with the same crime and bolted on another few years by making Gamble plead twice.

I tend to side with Ginsburg's interpretation on this and believe the Supreme Court has made a fatal error in judgement that will impact us all. Federalist No 22 and 82 makes sense to understand the notions of these Constitutional boundaries, as does the idea of a State being part of the United States (i.e. a State is not operating in a vacuum and immune from Federal governance, so the same applies to the application of Law and Punishment.) Division of authority was never intended to be weaponized into duel consequence of our legal system, and by interpretation was not intended to be a bypass to Double Jeopardy for the same crime. The impact of the interpretation of dual sovereignty rule to date has been about a double jeopardy loophole upheld. And it was always wrong.

Forget about the jump on the Trump hate train for a moment, by this interpretation it means that anytime anyone of us is charged with a crime and depending on how the case is disposed of (i.e. by trial, pleading guilty, or no contest) the door is opened up either way for a jurisdiction to decide they did not like conclusion of the case and try the same person again for the same crime. Just in some other jurisdiction. A State could decide it did not like the Federal conclusion to a case, the same is true the other way around.

What this decision does is pit Constitutional rights afforded to the Individual against State "powers" to enforce law by wedging the Federal Government to be a stopgap measure. What this also does is force the Individual into another reality, the cost of defending yourself in court may be arguably doubled if the State or Federal level do not agree with the other. It is easy to argue by both statistics and impact across the income quintiles that law is already applied unequally, this ruling gives either the State or the Federal level the ability to make that worse targeting any Individual for reasons we may not ever know.

The next time anyone is pulled over for a "busted headlight," and any other crime is discovered you now face double jeopardy depending on how the first case plays out with one party in the eyes of the other party. This is overreach and we should all be concerned about the outcome of now being found innocent in one jurisdiction with another saying 'not so fast.'

The Individual lost yesterday, badly... again.
 
danarhea said:
Trial by a Federal Court and by a State Court for the same offense, known as dual sovereignty, has been upheld, and is not considered double jeopardy.

This opinion is going to affect everybody, from Paul Manafort and others in the Trump administration, who were convicted on Federal charges, all the way down to the little guys (ie, you and me, should we end up in a similar situation).

What is strange about this opinion is the strange bedfellows on both sides. Majority opinion was written by Alito, with Conservatives and Liberals alike joining it. The 2 dissenters are Ginsburg and Gorsuch. Who would have thunk it?

So what do you think about the opinion, which was handed down today?

Gamble v. United States - SCOTUSblog
Click to expand...

There's that ... it's one of those things that I can see both sides and both appear to have some precedent.
Of course, the dissent had to go back pretty far for their precedent ...
"Gorsuch pointed to historical interpretations, including those from when the Fifth Amendment was adopted in 1791, which 'suggested that a prosecution in any court, so long as the court had jurisdiction over the offense, was enough to bar future reprosecution in another court.' "
Now THAT'S what I call originalist.
 
danarhea said:
Trial by a Federal Court and by a State Court for the same offense, known as dual sovereignty, has been upheld, and is not considered double jeopardy.

This opinion is going to affect everybody, from Paul Manafort and others in the Trump administration, who were convicted on Federal charges, all the way down to the little guys (ie, you and me, should we end up in a similar situation).

What is strange about this opinion is the strange bedfellows on both sides. Majority opinion was written by Alito, with Conservatives and Liberals alike joining it. The 2 dissenters are Ginsburg and Gorsuch. Who would have thunk it?

So what do you think about the opinion, which was handed down today?

Gamble v. United States - SCOTUSblog
Click to expand...

Being punished twice by the government for the same action seems like a departure from justice. How many times can you hang the same body?

The Justices, it seems to me, should have determined WHICH controlling authority is in control.

This strikes me as an "angels dancing on the head of a pin" kind of a decision. Probably rational by the letter of the law, but not at all fair to the citizens that it abuses.
 
danarhea said:
Yea, SCOTUS stuck a needle in Trump's pardon balloon today. What surprised the hell out of me was the voting.
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Is that the only thing that draws attention in this?
 
pinqy said:
Used by whom? Different sovereigns, different prosecutes, different courts and officials.
The double jeaopardy clause is meant to prevent a prosecutor or official(s) from using their authority to target and harass a person.
With different sovereigns that’s not the case.
Click to expand...

Not to the sovereigns.

Under our system, particularly the 5th Amendment, the law is set to protect the citizen agains the government. This ruling seems to enable government abuses against the citizen.

Which "sovereign" gets to hang the convicted body first? If the death sentence is carried out by one sovereign, can the body be buried or must it await the second execution in the cell?
 
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code1211 said:
Being punished twice by the government for the same action seems like a departure from justice. How many times can you hang the same body?

The Justices, it seems to me, should have determined WHICH controlling authority is in control.

This strikes me as an "angels dancing on the head of a pin" kind of a decision. Probably rational by the letter of the law, but not at all fair to the citizens that it abuses.
Click to expand...

Part of me thinks it's unfair.
Part of me thinks like Alito ... "where there are two sovereigns, there are two laws, and two 'offences.'". But that can lead to legal mischief.

I have enough trouble on DP. Good thing for everyone that no one put me in a position to decide these kinds of things.
 
danarhea said:
So what do you think about the opinion, which was handed down today?
Click to expand...

I jumped into a similar thread last night and having thought about it more I think it could have been wise of the Supreme Court to limit such Federal prosecutions to crimes involving Federal property or persons and interstate criminal activity. That is if we weren’t already 172 years into the practical application of this doctrine.

Even a small change would be a massive can of worms with authorities at all levels arguing over who has jurisdiction to do what and potentially millions of inmates filing appeals on the grounds that whoever put them there didn’t have jurisdiction to charge, try, or sentence them in the first place. So I don’t see that the Supreme Court had any choice but to uphold the doctrine in its entirety else the alternative would be swamping the courts with appeals and lawsuits to pick winners where local, State, and/or Federal law overlap.
 
OrphanSlug said:
Included is the "revised" opinion...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-646diff_ifjm.pdf

While it is nice to see something other than a 5-4 split ideological interpretation narrowly upholding or striking something down, in this case 7-2 decision resulted in an inverse problem. A split ideological interpretation in the decent itself, one from Gorsuch and one from Ginsburg.

It is all going to come down to interpretation of dual sovereignty rule.

In the case that brought this to the Supreme Court in the first place all that really happened is Gamble accepted a plea deal in Alabama to a charge the Federal Government thought should have resulted in a longer sentence, so they charged him with the same crime and bolted on another few years by making Gamble plead twice.

I tend to side with Ginsburg's interpretation on this and believe the Supreme Court has made a fatal error in judgement that will impact us all. Federalist No 22 and 82 makes sense to understand the notions of these Constitutional boundaries, as does the idea of a State being part of the United States (i.e. a State is not operating in a vacuum and immune from Federal governance, so the same applies to the application of Law and Punishment.) Division of authority was never intended to be weaponized into duel consequence of our legal system, and by interpretation was not intended to be a bypass to Double Jeopardy for the same crime. The impact of the interpretation of dual sovereignty rule to date has been about a double jeopardy loophole upheld. And it was always wrong.

Forget about the jump on the Trump hate train for a moment, by this interpretation it means that anytime anyone of us is charged with a crime and depending on how the case is disposed of (i.e. by trial, pleading guilty, or no contest) the door is opened up either way for a jurisdiction to decide they did not like conclusion of the case and try the same person again for the same crime. Just in some other jurisdiction. A State could decide it did not like the Federal conclusion to a case, the same is true the other way around.

What this decision does is pit Constitutional rights afforded to the Individual against State "powers" to enforce law by wedging the Federal Government to be a stopgap measure. What this also does is force the Individual into another reality, the cost of defending yourself in court may be arguably doubled if the State or Federal level do not agree with the other. It is easy to argue by both statistics and impact across the income quintiles that law is already applied unequally, this ruling gives either the State or the Federal level the ability to make that worse targeting any Individual for reasons we may not ever know.

The next time anyone is pulled over for a "busted headlight," and any other crime is discovered you now face double jeopardy depending on how the first case plays out with one party in the eyes of the other party. This is overreach and we should all be concerned about the outcome of now being found innocent in one jurisdiction with another saying 'not so fast.'

The Individual lost yesterday, badly... again.
Click to expand...

Well stated. When given an inch, the government at every level always tries to take the entire ruler. Anyone trying to make a name for themselves, can drag some poor schmuck through as many courtrooms as the “sovereigns” can afford. This can be particularly handy for prosecutors trying to make names for themselves to run for office, or to curry favor for judgeships.

I can see this in California: I get a $100 city fix - it ticket for a broken taillight. I fix it and pay the fine, thus, I have pled guilty. Then I get a citation for $75 from the county, then another $125 from the state. Then along comes the feds for another $100, all doable because I can’t fight it even if I could afford it.

Like asset forfeiture, it’s only a matter of time until until you get sucked up in the bureaucracy of the guilty.

This as a windfall for cash starved states.
 
danarhea said:
Yea, SCOTUS stuck a needle in Trump's pardon balloon today. What surprised the hell out of me was the voting.
Click to expand...

Asset forfeiture was popular when started it started because it targeted people you don’t like, today it’s used to relieve Moheshia of her rent money because she looks too poor to legally possess $600 in cash.

Those creative ideas that start with those you don’t like, aren’t so funny when they land on you the defenseless pissant.
 
chuckiechan said:
Well stated. When given an inch, the government at every level always tries to take the entire ruler. Anyone trying to make a name for themselves, can drag some poor schmuck through as many courtrooms as the “sovereigns” can afford. This can be particularly handy for prosecutors trying to make names for themselves to run for office, or to curry favor for judgeships.

I can see this in California: I get a $100 city fix - it ticket for a broken taillight. I fix it and pay the fine, thus, I have pled guilty. Then I get a citation for $75 from the county, then another $125 from the state. Then along comes the feds for another $100, all doable because I can’t fight it even if I could afford it.

Like asset forfeiture, it’s only a matter of time until until you get sucked up in the bureaucracy of the guilty.

This as a windfall for cash starved states.
Click to expand...

We agree more than we do not.

What this really does is leave to multiple levels of governance what the outcome of a criminal case *should* be by opinion influenced by any number of factors including politics, and it is a practical impossibility to ensure that State interests and Federal interests line up on these things.

Take any example for any crime in just about any State, it changes the dynamic of authority on any one charge for a given crime (including the decision on what charge is actually filed for that crime.) No matter what the onus ends up on the one charged with a crime that disposal of the case does not really dispose the case.

As I elude to, this can be politically weaponized at will with almost no limitations on what crime applies to the bypass of the double jeopardy standard.

Weapons charges, drug charges, murder charges, even DUI vehicular manslaughter charges have the capability of either the Federal level or the State level trying the case again to added on conclusions for the one found guilty no matter the method to that conclusion (conviction, plea bargain before or during trial, no contest, whatever else.) Because we are talking about stacked on sentences and punishments one can literally be guilty twice for the same crime and get added time... like what happened to Gamble.

How 7 justices agreed to this thinking... disastrous to the individual.
 
With this decision SCOTUS confirms that the 5th Amendment has been rendered as null and void as the rest of the US Constitution.

SCOTUS has declared that "...nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb..." is as meaningless as any other part of the Constitution.

Bravo! Yes, the American experiment has officially been declared over.
 
Thoreau72 said:
With this decision SCOTUS confirms that the 5th Amendment has been rendered as null and void as the rest of the US Constitution.

SCOTUS has declared that "...nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb..." is as meaningless as any other part of the Constitution.

Bravo! Yes, the American experiment has officially been declared over.
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I disagree. The Mississippi Burning case, along with many other similar cases in the South, comes to mind. Southern states actually acquitted some of those Klansmen who murdered black people, whose only crime was to try and vote. The Feds came in and prosecuted many of them, some of whom were set free by those states after committing crimes that were brutal and animalistic. This is what Separate Sovereigns allowed the Feds to do. This is not about double jeopardy at all. It's about justice, and the idea that neither the Feds nor the states are the last word in the matter. It still applies today. For Donald Trump, it means that he can pardon crooks until the cows come home, but whichever state their crimes were committed in, those states also have the right to prosecute, and justice will be served. You can bet the bank that Trump was following this case closely, and now his convicted cronies have lost an escape path from accountability for their crimes.
 
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This was a bad ruling. As RBG pointed out in her opposition; the PEOPLE are the sovereign, not the government that the people elect. And everyone, liberal and conservative alike...should be upset by this.
 
danarhea said:
Trial by a Federal Court and by a State Court for the same offense, known as dual sovereignty, has been upheld, and is not considered double jeopardy.

This opinion is going to affect everybody, from Paul Manafort and others in the Trump administration, who were convicted on Federal charges, all the way down to the little guys (ie, you and me, should we end up in a similar situation).

What is strange about this opinion is the strange bedfellows on both sides. Majority opinion was written by Alito, with Conservatives and Liberals alike joining it. The 2 dissenters are Ginsburg and Gorsuch. Who would have thunk it?

So what do you think about the opinion, which was handed down today?

Gamble v. United States - SCOTUSblog
Click to expand...

This trial affects no one. It upholds a standard of practice long in place.
 
bubbabgone said:
There's that ... it's one of those things that I can see both sides and both appear to have some precedent.
Of course, the dissent had to go back pretty far for their precedent ...
"Gorsuch pointed to historical interpretations, including those from when the Fifth Amendment was adopted in 1791, which 'suggested that a prosecution in any court, so long as the court had jurisdiction over the offense, was enough to bar future reprosecution in another court.' "
Now THAT'S what I call originalist.
Click to expand...

I oppose the federal government having jurisdiction over gun crimes in the first place. That founders never intended this sort of things to happen, since they never thought the federal government was going to make so many things "federal crimes"
 
danarhea said:
I disagree. The Mississippi Burning case, along with many other similar cases in the South, comes to mind. Southern states actually acquitted some of those Klansmen who murdered black people, whose only crime was to try and vote. The Feds came in and prosecuted many of them, some of whom were set free by those states after committing crimes that were brutal and animalistic. This is what Separate Sovereigns allowed the Feds to do. This is not about double jeopardy at all. It's about justice, and the idea that neither the Feds nor the states are the last word in the matter. It still applies today. For Donald Trump, it means that he can pardon crooks until the cows come home, but whichever state their crimes were committed in, those states also have the right to prosecute, and justice will be served. You can bet the bank that Trump was following this case closely, and now his convicted cronies have lost an escape path from accountability for their crimes.
Click to expand...


Oh heck, I though we were going to talk about the Supreme Law of the Land, but you want to talk about DJT.

Sorry, I was confused. I thought this thread was in the US Constitution section. Silly me!

I happen to agree with your point about Trump's pardons. Yes, they are abominations, pretty much each and every one.

However they are lawful, even though grossly immoral.

Double Jeopardy as covered in the Fifth Amendment IS the law of the land. That you are able to rationalize a way to ignore it just means you would fit in very damn well inside the Beltway. You think like they do.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Oh heck, I though we were going to talk about the Supreme Law of the Land, but you want to talk about DJT.

Sorry, I was confused. I thought this thread was in the US Constitution section. Silly me!

I happen to agree with your point about Trump's pardons. Yes, they are abominations, pretty much each and every one.

However they are lawful, even though grossly immoral.

Double Jeopardy as covered in the Fifth Amendment IS the law of the land. That you are able to rationalize a way to ignore it just means you would fit in very damn well inside the Beltway. You think like they do.
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1) Actually, I talked about DJT because this law applies exactly to his ability to grant pardons to those who keep their mouths shut.

2) I didn't rationalize anything. The Supreme Court upheld it, and it was a good decision. Prohibiting upholding the interests of multiple sovereigns enables "quashing", that is enabling one sovereign to defeat the interests of another sovereign. This is what would have happened in the South during the Mississippi Burning era, when Southern states acquitted Klansmen of murders they committed, and if not for Federal intervention, murderers would have not had to account for their heinous crimes. Without the Dual Sovereigns doctrine, Trump could pardon criminals, and that would just be the end of it. There is a damn good reason for the Dual Sovereigns doctrine, and it's not about Democrat v. Republican, or Liberal v. Conservative. It's about upholding the rule of law, and not allowing one sovereign to thwart justice, thus defeating the interests of another sovereign that also has skin in the game.
 
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