Does anyone recall a movie by this name? If I am not mistaken, the story goes like this. The husband faked his own death to be with his mistress and the wife was convicted for his "murder". Ater serving her imprisonment sentence, the wife killed the husband for real. But here's the catch. She cannot be punished again for the real murder as she had already been convicted previously. That is the doctrine of double jeopardy. You can only be convicted once for the same offence. The fancy phrase for this doctrine is autrefois convict.
Similarly if a person has been acquitted of an offence, he cannot be re-tried for the same offence even if subsequently there is new evidence to show that he did commit the offence. He can claim legal immunity through the doctrine of autrefois acquit. This prevents a kalah-kalahan (vindictive) prosecutor from bringing the same charges time and time again until he gets a conviction. You only have one bite of the cherry Mr. Prosecutor!
It must be noted that this doctrine only applies to the matters arising from the same fact. If a person charged for murder is acquitted, he cannot be charged subsequently for causing the death of the same person.However if during the killing, he commits robbery, he can still be charged for that offence.
3 comments:
How about a D is acquited from murder charge the re-tried for manslaughter. would that work?
What if a D is acquitted from murder charge then re-tried for manslaughter. Would that work?
If you have time, is it possible for you to comment on some people under the constitution or law of Brunei that is immune from legal action.
Thank you.
A person cannot be charged afresh if the new charge is based on the same conduct as the old charge. So an acquittal for murder will prevent a new charge of manslaughter or causing death by negligence of the same person from being instituted.I have also touched on the issue of immunity in a previous blog. Despite popular belief, apart from those mentioned, no one else is immune from prosecution. For example, a few years back, a very senior police officer was convicted for assaulting a suspect.
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