Waller v. Florida

Waller v. Florida, 397 U.S. 387 (1970), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court , which held that the Double Jeopardy Clause protects defendants from successive prosecutions by states and municipalities for offenses based on the same criminal conduct.

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**Waller v. Florida **

Contents

• 1 Background

• 2 Previous Legal Precedents

• 3 Dual Sovereignty

• 4 Case Facts

• 5 Decision

• 6 Concurring

• 7 Mural Replacement

• 8 Ashe v. Swenson

• 9 Conclusion

• 10 See also

• 11 Further reading

• 12 References

• 13 External links

Background

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Joseph Waller, Jr., also known as Omali Yeshitela , was a former member and organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). During the 1950s and 1960s, he actively participated in the American Civil Rights Movement . Today, he is chairman of the Uhuru Movement and has started branches in the Uhuru House Centers of St. Petersburg, FL and Oakland, FL. This case was significant in propelling Yeshitela's path toward advocacy and activism.

Previous Legal Precedents

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Before this case, the U.S. Supreme Court had not definitively ruled on the application of the Double Jeopardy Clause in regards to local and state ordinances and provisions. In fact, before Waller, about half of the states allowed for these double prosecutions, and some lower federal courts permitted it as well. _Palko v. Connecticut _ was the dominant precedent at the time, which gave permission for the individual states to essentially ignore the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution in enacting their own specific provisions regarding double jeopardy. Palko essentially gave the states full discretion in how they conducted double jeopardy prosecutions, with the exception that they followed the procedural due process of the judicial system.

However, this line of precedents was replaced by another, _Benton v. Maryland _. In this case, the Fifth Amendment Double Jeopardy Clause was incorporated and made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment , overruling the previous Palko case. Due to the holding in Benton, it became almost inevitable that the various state provisions outlining multiple prosecutions for the same instance be re-evaluated, some of them before the U.S. Supreme Court .

Dual Sovereignty

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Before Waller was decided, states had different qualifications for what constituted double jeopardy and which circumstances allowed for multiple prosecutions. Some states theorized that the judicial relationship between the municipalities and the states was relative to the relationship between the state government and the federal government. This justification is similar to a dual sovereignty embedded in the states' legislation which permits those multiple prosecutions for the same occurrences and crimes. There have been a few cases, such as Abbate v. United States and Bartkus v. Illinois, that had previously allowed double prosecutions if they took place on a state level and then on a federal level, but obviously these precedents didn't last long. The U.S. Supreme Court has distinguished between the sovereignty of the states and the federal government regarding some principles, but they have rejected the claim that the separation of sovereignty is so far that double jeopardy need not be acknowledged by the states.

Case Facts

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Waller was one of many who led a protest in St. Petersburg, Florida on December 29, 1966. During this protest, they marched to the St. Petersburg City Hall, where they removed a racially controversial mural from the wall. The mural exhibited a group of Negroes musically entertaining a group of whites. The protestors then continued to march through St. Petersburg until they were stopped and subsequently arrested by law enforcement. The police eventually obtained the mural from the protestors, but only after a scuffle resulting in the mural's damaged condition. The City of St. Petersburg charged Waller and five others with the violation of destruction of city property and disorderly breach of the peace . He was found guilty for both counts in the municipal court and was sentenced to 180 days in the county jail. During the municipal court process, Waller made the statement that "What happened Dec. 29, 1966, occurred as a result of a program I initiated to bring the plight of my people to the attention of the people of St. Petersburg..."

Waller was subsequently charged by the State of Florida for grand larceny , which was based on the same acts with which he was charged against by the City of St. Petersburg. He moved for a writ of prohibition in the Florida Supreme Court to prevent a second trial in the circuit court, due to his claim that a second trial would constitute double jeopardy . The Florida Supreme Court denied relief. Waller was then tried in the Circuit Court of Florida by a jury, where he was found guilty of the grand larceny felony charge. He was then sentenced to six months to five years in prison, minus 170 of the days from his previous 180-day municipal court sentence.

Upon Waller's appeal to the Florida District Court of Appeals , he was denied of his double jeopardy claim. The District Court's rejection acknowledged that the courts' actions were based on the same acts as those involved in the two City of St. Petersburg ordinances , but still did not find Waller to be subject to double jeopardy. Waller's petition for a writ of certiorari to the Florida Supreme Court was denied.

The United States Supreme Court then granted review for this case, with Leslie H. Levinson from Gainesville, Florida representing petitioner Joseph Waller and George Georgieff from Tallahassee, Florida as representation for the respondent. The case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on November 13, 1969, and the decision was handed down on April 6, 1970.

Decision

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Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote the majority opinion in this case on behalf of the U.S. Supreme Court . The question was whether or not two courts in the same state can place defendants on trial for the same crime, and whether or not this constituted double jeopardy. Double jeopardy provisions were made applicable to the states in _Benton v. Maryland _. This case, in addition to _North Carolina v. Pearce _, was considered in answering the i

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