WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has agreed to decide when prosecutors may retry criminal defendants after a jury votes not guilty on some charges, but fails to reach a verdict on others.
Federal appeals courts are divided on the issue of when the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on double jeopardy kicks in.
The justices, in an order Friday, say they will hear arguments in the cases of a former executive of Enron Corp.'s Enron Broadband Services unit. He was charged for his role in a scheme to deceive the public and drive up the price of Enron stock through false statements about the health of the energy giant's telecommunications arm.
Former company Vice President F. Scott Yeager also was accused of enriching himself by selling millions of dollars of Enron stock at inflated prices.
In 2005, a federal jury acquitted Yeager on some counts, but was unable to reach a verdict on others. Later that year, a grand jury returned a new indictment against him that basically re-alleged some insider trading charges on which the first jury did not agree.
He demanded that those charges be dismissed because the jury already decided, through the acquittals, that the underlying facts did not amount to insider trading. Yeager said trying him again would violate his constitutional rights.
The government argued that there is no constitutional problem in the retrial and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, agreed.
The case is Yeager v. U.S., 08-67. |