Ashe v. Swenson
- Decided
- April 20, 1970
- Docket
- 57
- Status
- Published
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Cited 4,277 timesNo negative treatment found in this library
What later courts said
- holding that collateral estoppel prevents an issue of ultimate fact from being relitigated between the same parties — United States v. Barrett (2007)
- holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause prevents a defendant acquitted of robbing one participant at a poker game from being prosecuted for robbing any of the other participants at the same game — Grady v. Corbin (1990)
- holding that principles of collateral estoppel are embodied within the double jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution — State v. Gunter (1982)
Each line is a later court’s own words about this case, not a summary. Read the opinion before relying on it.
How the opinion begins
Mr. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784, the Court held that the Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy is enforceable against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. The question in this case is whether the State of Missouri violated that guarantee when it prosecuted the petitioner a second time for armed robbery in the circumstances here presented.[1]
Sometime in the early hours of the morning of January 10, 1960, six men were engaged in a poker game in the basement of the home of John Gladson at Lee’s Summit, Missouri. Suddenly three or four masked men, armed with a shotgun and pistols, broke into the basement and robbed each of the poker players of money and various articles of personal property. The robbers — and it has never been clear whether there were three or four of them — then fled in a car belonging to one of the victims of the robbery. Shortly thereafter the stolen car was discovered in a field, and later that morning three men were arrested by a state trooper while they were walking on a highway not far from where the abandoned car had been found. The petitioner was arrested by another officer some distance away.
Cite this
Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970)Read the full opinion
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