Katelyn McCurdy
Why should people who were proven innocent have to be dragged into the same case ten years later? Once a person is acquitted of a crime, they should be allowed to rest free knowing that’s the end of it. The Double Jeopardy Rule, part of the Fifth Amendment, is the law that allows this freedom. If they didn’t find the evidence they needed the first time then they should let the person go and live their life, instead of always being at risk. The Double Jeopardy Rule states that no one can be tried twice for the same crime. Although in rare cases guilty people may go free because of the Double Jeopardy Rule, no one should live his life day by day knowing that he might be at risk of being re-tried for a crime that he had been found innocent of.
It would make no sense to end the Double Jeopardy Rule because it is an 800-year-old rule that states, “no one can be tried twice for the same crime.” This law should not be abolished since it has been working for so long, so why should we end it now if it has been working? As stated in the article “Danger in Abolishing Double Jeopardy Rule,” that says Queensland is thinking about applying they Double Jeopardy Rule. They say that without it, it would cause problems considering it is one of the most used foundations in our justice system. If we ended it now, prosecutors would have trials go on and on because they would be just looking for the verdict that they wanted. Acquittal would mean nothing. In this article it states, “It’s not about a fair justice system, it’s about what might appeal to the voter.” Having these innocent people wait to see if they are going to be dragged back in court cause the families a lot of stress that would possibly be heart wrenching for them. This article asked the strong question: “How many times could an acquitted person be re-tried for the same crime if you throw out an 800-year-old rule?” I believe that the answer would be many times; they could change so many things to make you go through a trial several times about the same thing. The laws could change and you’d be having trials left and right. Though, this is not right, because if we took it away, every time you would have to go back to court for your case you would have to pay the court costs, but some people don’t have enough money to repeatedly pay the fees, causing many problems. If this happens several times, police and lawyers will become sloppier with their jobs, depending on technology. They will not care as much about it and they did the first time; they will just want it to be other with.
Some reasons why we should keep the Double Jeopardy Rule would be that no one should be accused for a crime more than once, because if they were already convicted for it, then they already did their time or whatever the judge made them do. But if they never did it in the first place, then why should they have to go through a trial about the same thing more than once? That doesn’t make much sense. Tell who says this, “removing this law would mean that the innocent accused could never rest easy.” And their families would always be sad and worried about what would happen them in the future. Removing this law would result in endless re-trials and this law would only open up the possibility of the state harassing an individual with repeated prosecution of the same crime. In this article it said that prosecutors would have a trial go on and on, until they get the answer that they want from the person. Innocent people would later be dragged back in once people found more evidence; I don’t think that this is fair, they should find all the evidence first and if they don’t find it, then the person should be acquitted and should go on living his/her life. Why waste all this time on one person who could be innocent instead of something that is really a lot more meaningful than this?
Why should someone be tried again and again for the same crime? Why should judges be able to go back to a case and re-open it up again years later once they find evidence? This might be because they found the crime to be really bad and the person should be dragged in because they should go to jail, but on the same hand why have an innocent person dragged in again, they should be able to live their life and be happy.
Even though there are guilty people out there roaming around, why should the innocent people have to suffer instead of the guilty ones? Abolishing the Double Jeopardy Rule would change everything. It’s important that no one be tried twice for the same crime. It makes trials fair and innocent people would rest easy. So why not use this Rule in our lives today?