If at First You Don't Get a Prison Sentence, Try, Try Again

Fire that Lee Greenwood back up. It just never gets old. And you probably think, who cares? He's a scumbag child porn freak. And you thought the same thing about the Patriot (sic) Act. Who cares if you're not a terrorist? Then they started using it in drug cases. Then against anti-war activists. And then we find out the NSA has a secret interpretation of the Patriot (sic) Act, one even more lose and vague than the original. Who knows who the victims are now? People who opposed Obamacare? Ron Paul supporters? You know..."terrorists".

Now all they have to do is leave it to the states to prosecute, so they get two shots at the suspect if the system doesn't uhhh work the way it's supposed to. The Soviets would be very proud.

Reason Magazine -

Two years ago Steven D. Ballinger of Collinsville, Illinois, was sentenced to two and a half years of probation in state court after he pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and child pornography charges stemming from his videotaped encounter with a 12-year-old girl in July 2006, when he was 26. Last Friday he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the same crime, this time in federal court. A federal prosecutor explained that U.S. Attorney Steve Wigginton was "very offended by what he perceived as an extremely lenient sentence for this type of crime."

While Wigginton's reaction is understandable, do we want to let prosecutors try a defendant again whenever they think he got off too lightly the first time around? Isn't that sort of serial prosecution barred by the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause? Not, according to the Supreme Court, if it involves two different levels of government. According to the "dual sovereignty" doctrine, even though Ballinger pleaded guilty to the same crime (producing child pornography) both times, the fact that it was a state offense the first time and a federal offense the second time means the Double Jeopardy Clause does not apply. In fact, even if Ballinger had been acquitted in state court he still could have been convicted in federal court. Or if he had received a 30-year sentence in state court, he could have received another 30-year sentence in federal court.

Read it all.