Don ’t Gamble on Double Jeopardy

Terance Gamble was convicted of second-degree robbery in Alabama in 2008. That ’s a felony, so he was barred from possessing a firearm under both federal and state law. Seven years later, Gamble was pulled over for a broken taillight. Smelling marijuana, the police officer searched the car and found, among other things, a 9mm handgun. Alabama prosecuted Gamble under its “f elon-in-possession” statute and he was ultimately sentenced to a year in prison. Concurrent with the state’s prosecution, however, the U.S. attorney charged Gamble with the same offense underfederal law. He was sentenced to 46 months in prison and will be released early in 2020, nearly three years after he would have been released from state prison.At both the trial and appellate level, Gamble argued that the federal prosecution violated his Fifth Amendment right against being placed twice in jeopardy for the same crime. But given the “dual sovereignty” exception to that Double Jeopardy Clause, which the Supreme Court created 60 years ago—the idea that federal and state prosecutions have to be counted separately—the courts had to ignore that objection. Cato has joined the Constitutional Accountability Center in filing abrief urging the Court to review Gamble ’s case and overturn this misguided exception—as we’ve done before inWalker v. Texas andTyler v. United States, which presented the same issue.We make three principal arguments. First, none of the Framers would have contemplated su...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs