Opinion

Ashe v. Swenson

  • 397 U.S. 436
  • 90 S. Ct. 1189
  • 25 L. Ed. 2d 469
  • 1970 U.S. LEXIS 54
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Apr 20, 1970
Status
Published
Author
Black
On the bench
Stewart, Black, Harlan, Brennan, Bubger, Douglas, Marshall
Cited by
3,645 cases
Authority
More cited than 24.1%

Declined to follow on other grounds by Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342 (1990)

explaining that determining the preclusive effect of a prior judgment requires courts to “examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration” (citation omitted)

How later courts described this case

  • explaining that determining the preclusive effect of a prior judgment requires courts to “examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration” (citation omitted)
  • explaining that when judgment of acquittal is based on a general verdict, the reviewing tribunal must “examine the record of [the] prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.”
  • stating that when a previous judgment of acquittal is based on a general verdict, the court must “examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration”
  • recognizing an issue preclusion component to the federal Double Jeopardy Clause and concluding that, when the defendant was acquitted for the robbery of one person based on the state’s failure to prove the defendant’s identity as one of the robbers, the state was precluded from relitigating that issue in a trial for the robbery of another person during the same incident

Written by the judges who cited it.

Later courts went against this

  • Declined to follow on other grounds by Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342 (1990)

    397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469, 475 (1970), limited on other grounds Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 110 S.Ct. 668, 107 L.Ed.2d 708 (1990).
    Supreme Court of the United StatesJan 17, 19902 citing opinionsother groundsRead it
  • Limited by United States v. Arterbury, 322 F. Supp. 3d 1195 (2018)

    Citing Ashe, plaintiff responded that collateral estoppel was inapplicable to the pretrial suppression motion because when it was decided defendant was not in jeopardy.
    District Court, N.D. OklahomaApr 30, 2018Read it

Distinguished

  • Distinguished by State v. Waters, 560 S.W.3d 651 (2018)

    Ashe is distinguishable because, in that case, Ashe was subjected to criminal prosecution for an offense, followed by a second attempt at prosecution under circumstances that would have required relitigation of the same facts already found in his favor in the first trial.
    Court of Criminal Appeals of TexasOct 31, 2018Read it
  • Distinguished by State v. Atkins, 304 Ga. 413 (2018)

    Ashe does not apply, and we disapprove Moore as in conflict with later United States Supreme Court precedent.
    Supreme Court of GeorgiaSep 10, 2018Read it
  • Distinguished by State v. Muniz, Unpublished Decision (7-28-2006), 2006 Ohio 3975 (2006)

    Similarly, the Ashe cases are also distinguishable.
    Ohio Court of AppealsJul 28, 2006Read it
  • Distinguished by State v. Esco, 2005 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 98 (2005)

    Moreover, the collateral estoppel theory applied in Ashe is inapplicable to this case.
    Court of Criminal Appeals of AlabamaApr 29, 2005Read it

The opinion

Mr. Justice Black,

concurring.

I join in the opinion of the Court although I must reject any implication in that opinion that the so-called due process test of “fundamental fairness” might have been appropriate as a constitutional standard at some point in the past or might have a continuing relevancy today in some areas of constitutional law. In my view it is a wholly fallacious idea that a judge’s sense of what is fundamentally “fair” or “unfair” should ever serve as a substitute for the explicit, written provisions of our Bill of Rights. One of these provisions is the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition against putting a man twice in jeopardy. On several occasions I have stated my view that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a State or the Federal Government or the two together from subjecting a defendant to the hazards of trial and possible conviction more than once for the same alleged offense. Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U. S. 121, 150 (1959) (dissenting opinion); Abbate v. United States, 359 U. S. 187, 201 (1959) (dissenting opinion); Ciucci v. Illinois, 356 U. S. *448 571, 575 (1958) (dissenting statement); Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184 (1957). The opinion of the Court in the case today amply demonstrates that the doctrine of collateral estoppel is a basic and essential part of the Constitution’s prohibition against double jeopardy. Accordingly, for the reasons stated in the Court’s opinion I fully agree that petitioner’s conviction must be reversed.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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