Double Jeopardy
 Cases

8 Cases

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Daniel Wade Moore was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to death for the murder of Karen Tipton. In 2003, Moore's conviction was overturned due to the prosecution's withholding of exculpatory evidence. In 2005, the prosecution's conduct was found to be so egregious that a retrial was barred under Double Jeopardy laws. On hearing of this ruling, a juror declared, “I'm happy with it. I felt that Daniel didn't do it.” Moore was released, but was reimprisoned four days later by the court hearing the state's appeal. In 2006, the appeals court reversed the trial court's ruling and gave Moore the right to a retrial, but not a dismissal of charges. In Feb. 2008, Moore was retried, but a mistrial was declared after jurors were unable to agree on a verdict after 6 days of deliberation. In May 2009, Moore was acquitted at his third trial.  (JD) (WHNT 19)  [12/06]

“Ronald Joseph, Jr. was wrongly convicted in 2007 for leaving the scene of an accident, when after hitting a man he drove to a store to call 911 for help. During his trial the prosecution claimed that neither the tape of his emergency call for help nor a witness at the store could be located. The judge declared a mistrial. Ronald Joseph was retried, again without the prosecution producing the evidence he had called for help, and he was convicted. Joseph was sentenced to five years in prison. On July 30, 2008 Florida's First District Court of Appeals overturned Joseph's conviction and ordered his release because the judge shouldn't have declared a mistrial in the first trial, and because jeopardy had attached, it had violated his right against double jeopardy for him to have been tried twice.” – FJDB  (News Herald)

(Federal Case)  Army Captain Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted of the murder of his wife Collette, 26, and the murders of two daughters, Kimberly, 5, and Kristen, 2. According to MacDonald, he and his family were attacked by intruders to their home at 544 Castle Drive in Fort Bragg, a U.S. military base. MacDonald survived with wounds including a collapsed lung. MacDonald was acquitted of the murders at a Ft. Bragg Army hearing and probably would not have been tried again had he not angered the prosecution by criticizing them during interviews on national TV. MacDonald's Army acquittal meant that he could not be court-martialed, but he could still be tried in federal court and he was. Before his federal trial MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss on his defense team to write a book and hopefully help to establish his factual innocence. At that trial MacDonald was unfortunately convicted.
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Denny Frederick Ross was tried in Akron for the murder of 18-year-old Hannah Hill. Hill had disappeared one night and her body was found stuffed in the trunk of her Geo Prizm six days later. She had been beaten and strangled. Her body was found naked from the waist down and her bra and shirt were pushed up over her breasts. This display of her body suggested she was raped, but an autopsy found no evidence of rape and also determined that she was wearing her corduroy pants when she died. Hill had been romantic with Ross on the night of her disappearance and one theory of her murder is that her jealous and abusive boyfriend, Brad O'Born, had killed her for her infidelity. O'Born had scratch marks on his neck when police questioned him in the days following her disappearance.
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Walter Ogrod was sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn. The murder occurred near her house at 7245 Rutland Street, close to Cottman Avenue. Four witnesses had seen a man carrying a TV box in which Horn's body was found. One of the witnesses, David Schectman, told police he'd interacted with the box carrying man for 11 minutes on St. Vincent St.
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Robert Angleton, also known as Bob, was a bookie who took bets on sporting events. He was charged with murdering his 46-year-old wife, Doris. Following the murder, Bob told police that he suspected his brother Roger was the killer. Despite Roger's checkered past, Bob had employed him in 1989. He fired him less than a year later. After being fired, Roger felt Bob owed him $200,000 and even tried to rob him of it at gunpoint. Roger then threatened to put Bob out of business, by reporting him to the IRS. Bob ignored him, but Roger started making phone calls to customers, posing as an IRS agent.
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Guy Paul Morin was tried twice for the killing of nine-year-old Christine Jessop, his next door neighbor. Jessup was abducted from her Queensville home on Oct. 3, 1984. Her lifeless body was found on Dec. 31, 1984 some 33 miles away in the Durham Region. The body's decomposition was consistent with her death occurring near the time of her abduction. Morin was arrested in Feb. 1985, and acquitted at trial in Feb. 1986. The prosecution, however, appealed the acquittal and had it overturned. Morin was again arrested 5 months after his acquittal and convicted at retrial in 1992. At both trials the crown employed jailhouse informants to fill in gaps in its case. DNA tests exonerated Morin in 1995, and he was later awarded $1.4 million in compensation. A book was written about the case entitled Redrum The Innocent by Kirk Makin.  (Champion) (IB)  [12/05]

Govinda Mainali, a Nepalese migrant worker, was convicted of the rape and murder of a Tokyo woman. The victim, though a prostitute by night, was a respected economist for the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Although Mainali initially denied knowing the victim, he later admitted to investigators that he twice paid her to have sex with him. Mainali said he had not seen the victim for days prior to her murder. There were no witnesses to dispute his statement. A condom found at the scene of the crime contained Mainali's semen. After reviewing an expert's analysis of the semen, the trial judge ruled that the semen found was too old to have been produced on the day of the murder. The judge then stated there was no evidence of Mainali's guilt and acquitted him.

Following Mainali's acquittal, he was held in detention for over eight months while prosecutors sought a court more receptive to their case. In Dec. 2000, the Tokyo High Court reversed Mainali's acquittal and sentenced him to life in prison. The presiding judge, Toshio Takaki, was the same judge who had granted the prosecution's request to keep Mainali imprisoned pending appeal. After a few brief hearings that introduced no new evidence, he wrote that the record from the Mainali's first trial left no doubt of his guilt.  (Japan Times) (Legal Affairs)  [8/09]