Title: Killing Due Process: Double Jeopardy, White Supremacy and Gang Prosecutions
Abstract: The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution holds that no person shall be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb for the same offense. Read plainly, a person cannot be tried or punished more than once for a single crime. Yet in recent decades, as legislatures have expanded the prosecutorial state with weapons designed to punish more criminal defendants more harshly, the U.S. Supreme Court has abrogated its duty of constitutional protection and killed due process through the evisceration of double jeopardy. This Article argues that such an approach is flawed. The dismantling of Fifth Amendment double jeopardy protection is the product of white supremacy, couched in a legislative intent narrative, for the purpose of expanding the carceral state. Specifically, for gang statutes that proscribe multiple punishments, Black and Brown accused gang members are charged, tried, and punished multiple times, for a single offense, in violation of double jeopardy.
Publication Year: 2021
Publication Date: 2021-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
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