What is Jeopardy?
No, Alec Trebeck won’t be at your trial. Jeopardy is an old fashioned legal concept harkening back to the middle ages when a criminal trial was more of a true trial, a physical test you know, like when they tied someone up and threw them in the lake. If they sank, they were innocent. The rule developed over time that if you could survive that, it would sure be unfair to put you in jeopardy for the same thing again. Thus the rise of the Anglo-American concept that a person “shall not be put twice in jeopardy for the same crime.” The rule against double jeopardy comes down to this. Once jeopardy attaches, the state only has one chance to get its conviction. If the jury acquits, the prosecution can’t do it again. If the prosecutor commits misconduct causing a mistrial, the defendant cannot be tried again. The only exceptions are if the mistrial is caused by the defendant or the jury is “hung.” In the hung jury example, the defendant can be retried because no verdict was reached. (i.e., th
