Heath v. Alabama (1985)
- Docket
- 84-5555
- Decided
- 1985-01-01
Summary
Question: Does the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment prevent two separate states from trying an individual for the same crime? Conclusion: No. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor delivered the opinion of the 7-2 majority. The Supreme Court held that the doctrine of dual sovereignty grants each state the right to try a criminal under the laws of that state, regardless of whether he had already been tried under the laws of another state. The states can each be considered a separate sovereign because they do not derive their powers from the same source, namely the federal government. The Court also held that it would be an unconstitutional deprivation of a state’s powers to prevent that state from enforcing its laws because another state had proceeded to trial earlier. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. wrote a dissenting opinion where he argued that different interests or purposes in prosecution do not justify an exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause. Justice Thurgood Marshall joined in the dissent. In Justice Marshall’s separate dissent, he argued that the dual sovereignty doctrine was meant to permit federal and state prosecutions for the same offense due to the overlapping spheres of governmental power, not to permit prosecution from multiple states. He also wrote that the Court should have heard arguments about other aspects of the case that violated the petitioner’s rights rather than limiting the issues at hand to the one of dual sovereignty.