http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20130526-man-arrested-in-murder-case-goes-free-because-of-double-jeopardy.ece
A Murderer Goes Free Because of Double Jeopardy
A recent case in double jeopardy happened about ten months ago in Dallas, Texas. A man named Sharone Sylvester Brown was accused of killing his girlfriend, but he couldn't be charged with murder because he was charged with misdemeanor assault against his girlfriend. His girlfriend, Sherry Whitacre was very weak from on going cancer treatments when this incident happened. On an April, night Brown and Whitacre were drinking when Brown got angry with Whitacre so he punched her in the head then picked her up and threw her outside onto the sidewalk. The police were called to the scene and Whitacre refused to be taken to the hospital. Brown was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault. What the police didn't know was that Whitacre was taken to the hospital six hours after the assault and later died of an "unexplained death." In the meantime, prosecutors had no idea that Whitacre died, otherwise they would have waited for the autopsy results. Brown pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and served twenty days in jail. Six days after Brown was convicted, the medical examiner notified police that Whitacre's death was a homicide. The medical examiner found her cancer, a fractured thigh bone, and other medical problems were the cause of her death. May 1, 2013, police arrested Brown on suspicion of murder. Police then realized they could not charge Brown with murder because they charged him with misdemeanor assault for the same case.
Because of the Fifth Amendment, Brown could not be charged twice in the same case. This is an unfortunate case where double jeopardy may not be such a bad thing. Brown was sentenced to sixty days in jail but served twenty days for killing his girlfriend.
Wow, this is one of those times where the law can really have a negative effective. I understand why the Founders placed the 5th Amendment in the Constitution to prevent against issues of double jeopardy. It makes sense for why they place it there, as they just gained freedom from a tyranny government where such issues did occur. So they wanted to protect against double jeopardy. But cases like this one are where it gets frustrating. While I don’t know all the evidence, it seems like her boyfriend did murder her. And just because the police charged him with an assault on the incident, he cannot be charged for murder. To me, like I said, I get why the Founders placed the Amendment in the Constitution, in fact I agree it would not be right for the police or government to continue to press charges on the same incident until they could get a charge or more time. But like I previously stated, this case seems pretty apparent, as he probably did murder her, yet because the police charged him before she died due to his actions, they cannot switch and to me, that is not right. I feel for the girl’s family, that her murderer only got an assault charge.
ReplyDelete- Jonathan Hanje