Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber

Uncommon card · No. 170455

Louisiana ex rel. 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, constituted a violation of the United States Constitution. The issues raised surrounded the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment, as made applicable to the State of Louisiana via the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In an opinion by Justice Stanley Forman Reed, which three other justices (Chief Justice Vinson and Associate Justices Hugo Black and Robert H. Jackson) joined, and with which Justice Felix Frankfurter concurred, the Court held that re-executing Francis did not constitute double jeopardy or cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Reed wrote, Our minds rebel against permitting the same sovereignty to punish an accused twice for the same offense...

Read on Wikipedia