Supreme Court Declines Immigration Appeal as Sotomayor and Gorsuch Raise Double Jeopardy Concerns
Rights & JusticeWell-covered
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The Facts
- The Supreme Court declined to review Jesus Herrera-Salazar’s appeal.
- The Court denied review because Herrera-Salazar had been removed from the United States, rendering the case moot.
- Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a statement joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
- Herrera-Salazar was prosecuted twice for being found in the United States after removal.
- Herrera-Salazar pleaded guilty to the first charge and served a prison sentence.
- Federal supervision required Herrera-Salazar to remain in the Eastern District of Oklahoma before his second arrest.
- Sotomayor and Gorsuch said the case raised serious constitutional concerns involving double jeopardy protections.
Context
What was Herrera-Salazar’s legal argument?
He argued that the second prosecution for being found in the United States violated the Double Jeopardy Clause because he had already been prosecuted and imprisoned for the same immigration offense. Hill Court House News Se… Mexico Star
Why did the Supreme Court not decide the constitutional issue?
The justices declined review because Herrera-Salazar had already been removed from the United States, which made his appeal moot. Newsweek Washington Sun Free Press - Tampa
What did Sotomayor and Gorsuch say about future cases?
Sotomayor wrote that courts should give the Double Jeopardy Clause its full weight and meaning if similar circumstances arise again; Gorsuch joined her statement. Hill Aol Alternet.org
Where Left and Right agree
Left and right largely agree on this one.
- What both sides accept
- Both agree the second prosecution raised a genuine double jeopardy problem, and that dismissing the case as moot let a serious constitutional question go unresolved.
- Where Left and Right differ in emphasis
- Both call the double prosecution unconstitutional overreach; one stresses that the powerless have no real way to challenge it, the other that government simply must not hold such power.
How left and right read it
Constitutional protections are worth least to the people with the least power to invoke them, and this case shows exactly how that works: Herrera-Salazar pleaded guilty, served his prison sentence, and was then prosecuted a second time for being found in the country after removal — while federal supervision required him to stay in the Eastern District of Oklahoma. How many such prosecutions end with no one left to challenge them?
A government that can charge the same offense twice holds a power no constitutional order should concede. Herrera-Salazar pleaded guilty and served his sentence, yet federal supervision required him to remain in the Eastern District of Oklahoma — where he was prosecuted a second time for being found in the United States after removal. Gorsuch and Sotomayor called that serious. Enforcement must never manufacture its own second case.
The receipts — 13 sources
Independent coverage (13)
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