COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO v. LUIS M. SANCHEZ VALLE ET AL.
Supreme Court of the United States, Kagan, June 9, 2016,
Double Jeopardy – Dual Sovereign – Because Puerto Rico and the federal government both obtain their prosecutorial powers from the federal government, conviction/acquittal in one bars trial in the other.
(Concur – Ginsburg, Joined by Thomas Yep – Double Jeopardy should apply nationwide, eliminate Dual Sovereign rule)
(Concur – Thomas – Indian Tribes should not be considered separate sovereigns)
(Dissent – Breyer, Joined by Sotomayor – The majority’s opinion only makes sense if you don’t give it much thought)
The Court draws an interesting distinction between the self-governing commonwealth of Puerto-Rico and the states subsequent to the 13 colonies. It argues that we look to the “origin” of a government to determine whether its source of power is separate… but all origins subsequent to the 13 colonies are borne at some level of a “federal” origin.
Dual Sovereign – The question of whether separate governments may prosecute for the same crime is “whether the prosecutorial powers of the two jurisdictions have independent origins.”
Dual Sovereign – “[W]hen the same act transgresses the laws of two sovereigns, it cannot be truly averred that the offender has been twice punished for the same offence; but only that by one act he has committed two offences.”