Citation

Hickey TJ. J. Crim. Justice 1995; 23(1): 41-51.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0047-2352(94)00043-3

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Fifth Amendment Double Jeopardy Clause safeguards vital interests of the accused in criminal proceedings. That clause does not, however, prevent the government from retrying a criminal defendant after a hung jury mistrial. This is because a “manifest necessity” justifies declaring a mistrial in these circumstances. Also, if a defendant's trial ends in a hung jury, his original jeopardy is not terminated. Retrial in these cases also is permitted because of an important governmental interest in a full opportunity to prosecute its criminal cases. Byron De La Beckwith was recently convicted of the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers, an early civil rights leader. This was the third time in approximately thirty years that the state of Mississippi had charged Beckwith with this crime. The first two trials, which took place in 1964, ended in hung jury mistrials. This article examines the double jeopardy implications of Beckwith's latest conviction and recommends that the courts adopt a more flexible standard for determining if a defendant should be retried after a hung jury mistrial. The proposed rule would place greater emphasis on an accused's important double jeopardy interests including finality and action limitation, in not allowing the government to gain a tactical advantage by manipulating criminal proceedings, and in preventing the prosecution from fine-tuning its trial strategy.