On May 25, 2011, CAC filed an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court in support of the petition for a writ of certiorari in Blueford v. Arkansas. The petitioner has asked the Court to hear the case to decide whether the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, permits the government to subject a criminal defendant to a second trial for the same serious charges of which a jury has acquitted him, simply because the jury deadlocked on a lesser-included offense. The Arkansas Supreme Court concluded that the Double Jeopardy Clause did not prevent the state from retrying Blueford on charges that the jury in his first trial unanimously rejected, relying on the fact that the jury deadlocked on a lesser-included offense. This ruling conflicts with the holdings of five other state courts.

CAC’s brief in Blueford urged the Supreme Court to grant review to clarify the scope of the Double Jeopardy Clause’s protection of jury acquittals. The brief set forth the text and history of the Double Jeopardy Clause –including English common law precedents and the Framers’ debates over the Bill of Rights –demonstrating that, under the Clause, a jury’s acquittal is final, barring either a new trial or a successive prosecution. The brief argued that giving prosecutors a second chance to convict Blueford of charges a jury has unanimously rejected conflicts with the Constitution’s text and history and the precedents of the Supreme Court, and urged the Court to grant review to protect core constitutional values at the heart of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

On October 11, 2011, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

On December 2, 2011, CAC filed a merits stage brief in the Supreme Court supporting petitioner Alex Blueford in his appeal of the violation of his constitutional right against double jeopardy.

On May 24, 2012, the Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision upholding Arkansas’ ruling that the Double Jeopardy Clause did not prevent the state from retrying Blueford. Read CAC’s statement decrying the ruling as a “Sad Day for the Constitution” here.