Bravo-Fernandez: Did The Court Incentivize Overcharging?
By Justin Shur and Lisa Bohl ( December 7, 2016, 11:03 AM EST) -- On Nov. 29, the U.S. Supreme Court in Juan Bravo-Fernandez and Hector Martinez-Maldonado v. U.S. unanimously decided that a businessman and former politician can be retried on federal bribery charges. The Supreme Court held that a retrial would not violate the issue preclusion prong of the double jeopardy clause, even though the jury had previously acquitted the defendants of other offenses based on the same allegations underlying the bribery charges.[1] The case appears to be a setback for criminal defendants, potentially providing prosecutors with another incentive to charge overlapping counts based on a single predicate offense. But how much the case will actually affect the dynamic of charging decisions is uncertain....
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