![handle is hein.journals/uilro2024 and id is 1 raw text is: PLEA AGREEMENTS AND THE DOUBLE
JEOPARDY CLAUSE
Ethan Yan*
In August 2023, the Sixth Circuit held in Soto v. Siefker that the Fifth
Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause does not foreclose the prosecution
of charges previously dismissed under plea agreements. Although the court
correctly ruled against the defendant, the case's facts highlight how the
Supreme Court has departed from the original meaning of the Amendment.
First, the Court has defined too broadly what constitutes the same of-
fence under the Clause. Second, some principles of its double-jeopardy
jurisprudence are better rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Pro-
cess Clause. Moreover, returning to the Fifth Amendment's frst principles
would not enable governmental overreach; contract principles can guar-
antee the fulfillment of promises in plea agreements. This Essay provides a
template to resolve future cases like Soto consistent with the original mean-
ing of the Double Jeopardy Clause.
INTRODUCTION
In the 1999 movie Double Jeopardy, a husband fakes his death and frames
his wife for murder. When she discovers that he is still alive, she resolves to kill
him and invoke double-jeopardy protections since she has already been con-
victed of his murder.' The film is premised on an incorrect interpretation of the
Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause.2 Yet it demonstrates how the guar-
antee that [n]o person shall be ... subject for the same offence to be twice put
in jeopardy of life or limb is less straightforward than it may appear.3 What does
same offence mean? When is one put in jeopardy? A recent case from the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Soto v. Siejker,4 raised these
* Student, Yale University. For reviewing early drafts, I thank Joshua A. Hanley and Adam Reed Moore.
I benefited immensely from extensive discussions with James Rex Lee, as well as the insights of Akhil Reed
Amar. Finally, I am grateful for the care and diligence of University ofIllinois Law Review Online Editors James
Cheney, Kevin Estes, Julia Massari, and Gerardo Medina. All views and errors are, of course, my own.
1. DOUBLE JEOPARDY (Paramount Pictures 1999).
2. Mohammad Nayeem Firoz, Double Jeopardy in Criminal Proceedings, DHAKA TRIBUNE (May 28,
2014), https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/laws-rights/66036/double-jeopardy-in-criminal-proceedings
[https://perma.cc/3TEZ-U9RP].
3. U.S. CONST. AMEND. V.
4. Soto v. Siefker, 79 F.4th 715 (6th Cir. 2023).
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