ART. I, SECTION 13. SELF-INCRIMINATION AND DOUBLE JEOPARDY
April 8, 2008 – 12:36 amNo person shall be compelled in a criminal case to give evidence against himself nor be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense.
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2 Responses to “ART. I, SECTION 13. SELF-INCRIMINATION AND DOUBLE JEOPARDY”
As I understand it, the original V Amendment provision was in response to the king’s agents taking any number of attempts to convict. This is a worthy goal we should strengthen.
Now, we allow persons to be put into double jeopardy by redefining crimes and by allowing the feds to indict for the very same act. I do not know how to fix this but why not change the wording from “offense” to “act”.
Also, because justice is best served locally and quickly, any Illinois conviction should be set aside if a federal indictment eventuates for the same act. In this way, the feds would have an interest in seeing the best, most just outcome, rather than simply piling on.
By Ralf Seiffe on Apr 17, 2008
I think the biggest problem with changing to “act” would be those acts that involve the breaking of a number of laws. For instance, say you have an armed robbery that turns into a hostage situation in which the perpetrator kills one of the hostages. If you define it by “act”, you may limit the prosecution to only one charge. You’d have to use razor sharp language to prevent that problem.
As far as federal / state crimes, a state constitution couldn’t prevent the feds from acting, but in theory you could prevent the state from acting after the feds did. In the end, you’d simply have state trials and then federal trials (much like you usually have now). I’m not sure of a good way to fix it.
By John Bambenek on Apr 22, 2008