5 ms·
What is the prosecution's justification for this not being double-jeopardy?
by Cieplak 14y ago
What is the prosecution's justification for this not being double-jeopardy?
- chollida1 14y agoDifferent jurisdictions, Federal and state. It still seems pretty vindictive.
- gte910h 14y agoI really hate that this is allowed.
- runako 14y agoA person allegedly breaks several different laws in different jurisdictions; is prosecuted for each alleged violation in each jurisdiction. What's wrong with that? A more extreme counterexample would be that a case where a person broke into an office and stole a USB stick, kidnapping an employee and shooting a guard on the way out. There's IP theft (federal), kidnapping (federal), and homicide (local). Which should that person not be prosecuted for? How do you choose?
- arjunnarayan 14y agoThere should be some kind of "reverse class-action" clause that enables a defendant to bring in every potential plaintiff into the suit: i.e. if I'm being prosecuted for stealing code by a federal prosecutor, I should be able to bind New York State to the same trial so that all the verdicts are delivered at the same time.
- Dylan16807 14y agoThe problem is that it's two trials for one action. Your scenario is four actions. Breaking in, theft, kidnapping, shooting.
- runako 14y agoThis is splitting hairs. If a person steals cash and jewels, is that two actions? In any case, I'm not an attorney and this appears to be settled law and not really up for debate.
- sgift 14y agoIf "not really up for debate" follows from "settled law" - how do you change settled law (e.g. if it is a dumb law)?
- runako 14y agoYou convince a judge, not some guys in an online forum. That's what I meant by "not up for debate" : "not up for debate in this forum, by laypeople".
- Dylan16807 14y agoFeel free to divide the actions arbitrarily if you really want to. Charge then with half the jewels federal, half the jewels state. It's when the charges overlap that I feel justice isn't best served. Also you'd need to try to mitigate nonlinearity in punishment somehow. At the very least figure out a way to punish any details like "armed robbery" only once.
- runako 14y agoWe can try to reinvent longstanding law here on HN, or we can look for a library on CPAN (or in a law library?) that already implements it. These questions have come up many times before, with many sets of specifics. This is what many smart people came up with, which has stood the test of time. Trying to unravel longstanding law is kind of like poking at a piece of code that's been running for 20 years and deciding you can do better. Then realizing that the only way to make it better is to rewrite it from scratch, because there are reasons for all of the funkiness in the code. And rewriting fails spectacularly in code much of the time (see TextMate 2, for instance). Imagine how much success non-programmers would have at rewriting a complex system from scratch. That's roughly how much success I'd expect HN users to achieve at rewriting longstanding law. I'm just saying, the outcomes may seem capricious, but picking at one string isn't going to improve things. If you think otherwise, you may have a bright career in the legislature.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chollida1 14y agoTo me the biggest problem for an individual is that they incur the cost of defending themselves twice. For state and federal governments the cost of 2 trials is inconsequential. For an individual the cost of two trials can easily push them into bankruptcy. Now if the individual is guilty you might not have that much sympathy for them, but consider that innocent people have to defend them selves in court as well.
- runako 14y agoI agree with the general issue of the cost of defending oneself. But today, in New York alone, hundreds of poor people will be arrested and charged with crimes they may not be guilty of. Many will have been singled out because of their appearance. They will not have access to attorneys (except the public defender flunkies), and most will serve jail time. I have a lot more concern and sympathy for the breakage of the system for these guys than for the multimillionaire banker who was charged essentially only because he got caught.
- sp332 14y agoThat was a federal case. According to the appeal, the federal law was misapplied. Now he's on trial for breaking state laws.
- njloof 14y agoThe article explains the issues clearly.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bearmf 14y agoHe was originally charged by US Attorney and found guilty by a federal jury, then released by federal appeals court. The new case has been filed by Manhattan District Attorney in NY state court. Apparently double-jeopardy does not apply in this case.
- rdtsc 14y agoSo in theory someone could be taken to court 3 times for same offense: federal, state and local?
- signalsignal 14y agoI think the theory goes that it isn't double jeopardy if the municipal, state, and federal don't work "in concert". I only just read the article, so I can't explain what "scientific espionage" even is.
- T_S_ 14y agoMax 2. Local courts are "state" offices.
- bearmf 14y agoFrom Wikipedia on Double Jeopardy: The exception to this exception exists between city and state sovereignties located within the same state. Although cities are different sovereignties than the state they are located within, the two are not permitted to attach jeopardy more than once cumulatively.
- abecedarius 14y agoDon't forget the civil option!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]