Summary
The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Jenkins’s motion to dismiss the indictment and pleas in bar seeking to prevent his retrial for two murders and related offenses. The court held that double jeopardy did not bar retrial because the prosecutorial misconduct was not intended to provoke a mistrial or secure an opportunity for retrial. Applying the Barker v. Wingo factors, the court also concluded that the approximately six-year-and-nine-month delay did not violate Jenkins’s constitutional right to a speedy trial.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether prosecutorial misconduct found in the prior proceedings barred Jenkins's retrial under the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States and Georgia Constitutions.
- Whether the approximately six-year-and-nine-month period after remand from habeas proceedings violated Jenkins's constitutional right to a speedy trial under the Barker v. Wingo balancing test.
Holdings
- Prosecutorial misconduct does not bar retrial after a conviction is reversed or vacated unless the misconduct was intentionally designed to cause a mistrial, reversal, or termination of the first proceeding in order to secure an opportunity to retry the defendant. Because the evidence at Jenkins's first trial was sufficient and the State's misconduct was aimed at obtaining convictions rather than aborting the trial and securing a retrial, double jeopardy did not bar retrial.
- Jenkins did not establish a constitutional speedy-trial violation. Although the approximately six-year-and-nine-month delay after the 2006 remittitur was presumptively prejudicial, the Barker factors, considered together, did not favor dismissal: responsibility for the delay was shared or attributable to Jenkins, he failed to assert the right until 2012, and the presumption of prejudice was overcome.
Key quotations
“However, double jeopardy does prohibit the retrial of a criminal defendant when the State does not produce sufficient evidence at the initial trial to sustain a conviction.” (294 Ga. at 509)
“Thus, the trial court properly concluded that double jeopardy does not bar Jenkins’s retrial.” (294 Ga. at 510)
“The existence of no one factor is either necessary or sufficient to sustain a speedy trial claim” (294 Ga. at 511)
Factual background
Jenkins was convicted in 1995 of two malice murders, kidnappings with bodily injury, armed robbery, and theft, and received two death sentences. State habeas proceedings resulted in the vacatur of his convictions and sentences, including findings of ineffective assistance, a conflict of interest, and prosecutorial misconduct involving suppression of evidence. After the case was remanded for a new trial, Jenkins sought to bar retrial based on double jeopardy and speedy-trial violations.
Procedural history
Jenkins was convicted in 1995 of two malice murders and related crimes and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed his convictions in 1998. In habeas proceedings, the habeas court vacated the convictions and death sentences based on the constitutional prohibition on executing a person who was under eighteen at the time of the crimes and on ineffective assistance of counsel; the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed and ordered a new trial in 2006. Jenkins then filed motions and pleas in bar to prevent retrial, which the superior court denied on January 28, 2013. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed.