Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber
Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947), is a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court was asked whether imposing capital punishment (the electric chair) a second time, after it failed in an attempt to execute Willie Francis in 1946,[1] constituted a violation of the United States Constitution.Justice Reed wrote, Our minds rebel against permitting the same sovereignty to punish an accused twice for the same offense.When an accident, with no suggestion of malevolence, prevents the consummation of a sentence, the state's subsequent course in the administration of its criminal law is not affected on that account by any requirement of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.We find no double jeopardy here which can be said to amount to a denial of federal due process in the proposed execution.(Citations omitted).Dissenting, however, Justice Harold Burton (joined by Justices William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, and Wiley Rutledge) argued, How many deliberate and intentional reapplications of electric current does it take to produce a cruel, unusual and unconstitutional punishment?