"But when he was acquitted at the state level for murder; the Feds tacked on the murder charge and won a conviction! Tried twice for the same murder!! Doesn't that violate the double jeopardy clause?"
*** On the surface, you would think so. However, if you were to research the ACTUAL charges, you would probably find that the federal charge was in fact a separate charged crime. For example, unless there is a federal issue to the murder, the federal prosecutors would not be able to bring the charge.
Another example is the 'Rodney King' fiasco. The officers -- Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno -- and police sergeant Stacey Koon, were indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury in connection with the beating. All four were charged with "assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury and a deadly weapon" and with assault "under color of authority". The court in Simi Valley in Ventura County found all four officers not guilty of all charges.
Under pressure by the the black community and politics, the federal prosecutors took them to a federal grand jury who returned a two- count indictment charging that Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno, while under colour of law, deprived Rodney King of his federally protected civil rights. The first count of the indictment charged three of the defendants -- Powell, Wind, and Briseno -- with violating King's federal constitutional rights by wilfully using unreasonable force against him while arresting him. The second count of the indictment charged Koon, then a sergeant of the Los Angeles Police Department, with violating King's federal constitutional rights by wilfully permitting the three other officers to unlawfully assault him, thereby wilfully depriving him of his right to be kept free from harm while in official custody.
On Friday, April 17, 1993, the jury rendered its verdicts on these prosecutions. Two police officers, Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell, were found guilty of the charges against them. The other two officers, Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind, were found not guilty.
