California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Sons v. Superior Court, 125 Cal.App.4th 110, 22 Cal.Rptr.3d 647 (Cal. App. 2004):
It is apparent that the first and third items in the foregoing listing are not protected by the double jeopardy clauses through the mechanism of barring retrials. These somewhat generalized "fairness" concerns are, in the usual case, sufficiently addressed through a fair retrial with appropriate sanctions or restrictions on the prosecution. Barring retrial to address these concerns is deemed too high a price for society to pay for "trial error." (See People v. Hernandez, supra, 30 Cal.4th at p. 8, 131 Cal.Rptr.2d 514, 64 P.3d 800.) And the fifth item in the listing involves not retrials, but second trials after valid convictions. In our analysis, only the second and fourth interests listed above, to which we turn next, are core interests protected by the double jeopardy bar on retrials.
Double jeopardy protection, in the context of acquittal or mistrial, serves two primary interests. First, and most obviously, a criminal defendant has a protected interest in the finality of an acquittal (hereafter, the "finality" interest). (People v. Hernandez, supra, 30 Cal.4th at p. 8, 131 Cal.Rptr.2d 514, 64 P.3d 800.) Second, a defendant has a more limited interest in
[22 Cal.Rptr.3d 652]
having his or her trial completed by
[125 Cal.App.4th 118]
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