For over fifty years, the Supreme Court has recognized that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment bars the retrial of a criminal defendant after a mid-trial court-ordered acquittal, even if that ruling results from an egregious legal error committed by the trial judge on the defendant’s own motion. And since its 1977 decision … Continue reading Opinion recap: Reaffirming double jeopardy’s line between “substantive” and “procedural” dismissals