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No. For the same reason, you can prosecute a separate federal crime based on the same conduct even if a particular State has prosecuted that conduct under its o
by pseingatl 3y ago
No. For the same reason, you can prosecute a separate federal crime based on the same conduct even if a particular State has prosecuted that conduct under its own statutes. This is called the "separate sovereigns" doctrine. Keep in mind that at the time the Constitution was written--and for a long time thereafter--there were almost no federal crimes (counterfeiting, piracy and customs offenses come to mind) so that crime was a State matter.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoI'm aware of the fed/state split, but my understanding was that they are usually very careful to avoid doing that so as to avoid SCOTUS getting ahold of it and making a ruling? There are rare exceptions, like with the Rodney King cops (prosecuted federally as civil rights violations instead of aggravated assault, etc. so as also to deny SCOTUS any opportunity for review on double jeopardy grounds).
- zerocrates 3y agoOverlapping state and federal prosecutions aren't ultra-rare... the killers of Ahmaud Arbery come to mind: state court convicted them of murder, the feds for hate crimes and gun crimes. That kind of split where the federal charges don't sort of squarely address the core content is common, because something like murder in a general sense isn't a federal crime. As for avoiding the Supreme Court, the case of really tightly matching prosecutions and whether that violates double jeopardy has already happened: the court upheld "separate sovereigns" in Gamble v. US in 2019, a case where both the state and federal government charged someone with illegally possessing a gun as a felon, based on a single traffic stop.