United States v. Dinitz
In the defense's opening statements, Wagner gave improper personal opinions regarding the prosecution's key witness and case.The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment protects a defendant in a criminal proceeding against multiple punishments or repeated prosecutions for the same offense.Underlying this constitutional safeguard is the belief that: "the State, with all its resources and power, should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that, even though innocent, he may be found guilty.A motion by the defendant for mistrial is ordinarily assumed to remove any barrier to retrial, absent bad faith on part of the prosecutor of judge.But here the judge's banishment of Wagner from the proceedings was not done in bad faith to goad Dinitz into requesting a mistrial or prejudice his changes of an acquittal.