South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

The United States Supreme Court released two criminal law opinions today. The first, (from the syllabus) Osbourne, holds that there is no due process right to access DNA for testing post-conviction. The Court does not answer the question of whether there is a federal right to be released upon proof of actual innocence, and says that even if there were such a right the denial of access to DNA evidence would not be a violation of fundamental fairness - it is more appropriate for the individual states' legislatures to define the parameters of access to DNA (even if they don't provide access).

Yeager v. U.S. revisits Ashe v. Swenson, re-affirming that issue-preclusion will prevent the government from re-litigating any issue that was necessarily decided by a jury's acquittal in a prior trial. Yeager was acquitted of charges of securities and wire fraud related to the Enron fiasco, but the jury could not reach a verdict on charges of insider trading and money laundering. Relying on the lower court's finding that the acquittal did involve a finding that Yeager did not have inside information which was an element of the acquitted charge as well as the remaining charges, the Court held that the government is precluded from re-trying the remaining counts - an "apparent inconsistency between a jury’s verdict of acquittal on some counts and its failure to return a verdict on other counts [does not affect] the preclusive force of the acquittals under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment."