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Benton v. Maryland

Supreme Court of the United States · 1969 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawDouble JeopardyIncorporationConcurrent Sentence DoctrineFifth AmendmentFourteenth Amendmentincorporationdouble jeopardy

Facts

At petitioner's first Maryland trial, the jury acquitted him of larceny but convicted him of burglary. After Maryland invalidated a constitutional provision requiring jurors to profess belief in God, petitioner was given the option to have his conviction set aside because both the grand and petit juries in his case had been selected under that invalid provision; he chose a new indictment and new trial. At the second trial, Maryland again tried him for both larceny and burglary despite his objection that retrial on larceny violated double jeopardy, and the jury convicted him of both offenses. He received concurrent sentences, including five years for larceny.

Issue

Does the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment apply to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment? If so, did Maryland violate that protection by retrying petitioner on the larceny count after the first jury had acquitted him, even though he sought a new trial on the burglary conviction and received concurrent sentences?

Rule

The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment is a fundamental guarantee applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. The existence of a concurrent sentence does not create a jurisdictional bar to review because potential collateral consequences preserve a live case or controversy. A State may not condition a defendant's appeal of one conviction on his surrender of a valid plea of former jeopardy as to another count on which he was previously acquitted.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In Ohio state court, Talia Moreno was tried for robbery and assault arising from one incident in Cleveland. The jury acquitted her of assault but convicted her of robbery; after the robbery conviction was vacated because the jury pool had been selected under an unconstitutional state rule, Ohio retried her on both counts over her objection and obtained convictions on both.

If Talia argues in federal constitutional terms that the second assault prosecution was barred, which is the strongest response?

Explanation. The governing rule is that the Double Jeopardy Clause is a fundamental guarantee applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Once the defendant was acquitted on the assault count, the State could not retry that same count, even though another conviction from the same trial was later set aside and retried.