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double jeopardy n: the prosecution of a person for an offense for which he or she has already been prosecuted — see also jeopardy, amendment v to the constitution in the back matter compare merger 3◇ The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states that no person shall “be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” The double jeopardy clause bars second prosecutions after either acquittal or conviction, and prohibits multiple punishments for the same offense.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Merriam-Webster. 1996.
- double jeopardy
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noun
double prosecution, double punishment, recharged, relitigated, reprosecuted, retried, tried for the same crime
Burton's Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006
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n.A second prosecution for an offense after the defendant has already been tried for it and acquitted; prohibited by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
The Essential Law Dictionary. — Sphinx Publishing, An imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. Amy Hackney Blackwell. 2008.
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as jeopardy is the risk of conviction or punishment, double jeopardy refers to the rule that a person should not be tried twice for the same crime. Boasting persons who have been wrongly acquitted of murder discover that, in many jurisdictions, perjury is considered as a different crime from murder, so if the accused person has himself given perjured testimony he may be tried, convicted and sentenced for lying under oath, if, of course, he chose to give evidence on his own behalf.
Collins dictionary of law. W. J. Stewart. 2001.
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A rule from the Fifth Amendment to the U S Constitution that prohibits a criminal efendant from being twice made to stand trial for the same offense. A defendant is put "in jeopardy" once the jury is sworn. If the prosecutor moves to dismiss the case after that, the defendant cannot be retried. When a judge dismisses a case, however, a retrial is generally possible unless the dismissal was engineered by the prosecutor's misconduct, or there was no overriding necessity to dismiss the case. Double jeopardy protects defendants only for retrials brought within the original jurisdiction, which is why a defendant can be tried in federal court after being tried in state court. Double jeopardy does not prevent trial in a civil court on underlying facts that previously formed the basis of a criminal trial.Category: Criminal LawCategory: Small Claims Court & Lawsuits
Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary. Gerald N. Hill, Kathleen Thompson Hill. 2009.
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n. The fact or risk of being prosecuted more than once for the same (or substantially the same) offense. Double jeopardy is prohibited by the United States Constitution; however, separate proceedings under state and federal law for offenses arising out of the same incident do not constitute double jeopardy (for example, a state trial for murder and a federal trial for deprivation of civil liberties involving the same killing).
Webster's New World Law Dictionary. Susan Ellis Wild. 2000.
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A second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal or conviction or multiple punishments for same offense. The evil sought to be avoided by prohibiting double jeopardy is double trial and double conviction, not necessarily double punishment.
Dictionary from West's Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005.
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I
A second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal or conviction or multiple punishments for same offense. The evil sought to be avoided by prohibiting double jeopardy is double trial and double conviction, not necessarily double punishment.II Putting a person on trial more than once for the same crime. It is forbidden by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Short Dictionary of (mostly American) Legal Terms and Abbreviations.
- double jeopardy
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n.placing someone on trial a second time for an offense for which he/she has been previously acquitted, even when new incriminating evidence has been unearthed. This is specifically prohibited by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states: ":nor shall any person be subject for the same offence [sic] to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb:" However, in rare instances a person may be tried for a different crime based on some of the same facts which were used to try him/her when he/she was acquitted. A prime example is the use of the Federal Civil Rights Act to charge a person with violation of another's civil rights by killing him, after a state murder case had resulted in an acquittal, as happened in the 1994 trials for the deaths of civil rights activists and freedom riders Andrew Goldman, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Viola Liuzzo, that occurred thirty years earlier.
Law dictionary. EdwART. 2013.
