Does double jeopardy apply?

[ak482]

Case: Judy Malinowski, a mother of 2 living in Columbus, OH, was doused with gasoline & set on fire by her boyfriend.  While she was in the hospital for nearly 2 years, the boyfriend pleaded guilty to aggravated assault & received 11 years in prison. Subsequently, Judy died as a result of her injuries.  Now Franklin County prosecutors are planning to charge him with aggravated murder.

Since the boyfriend already pleaded guilty to aggravated arson & is serving his sentence, can he be tried for murder on the same crime?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While they stem from the same action, they aren't the same crime. It's like when back in the day, states were passing pot taxes so that they could charge someone with both selling illegal drugs and not paying the tax on those same drugs.  It's not at all unusual for the same action to be broken down into multiple "crimes" for purposes of conviction and sentencing.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     My understanding is that it was decided in Blockburger v. United States (1932) that double jeopardy does not affect the prosecution of two charges where neither one is a lesser included of the other. Aggravated assault is not a lesser included of murder, so there should not be any issue here.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This was actually the twist on one of those legal drama shows I believe. Basically this wealthy guy shot his wife but was able to get all of the important evidence thrown out, so he was acquitted. Later the prosecutor went to talk to him and he started gloating...at which point the prosecutor called in the police he had just outside the building to arrest him because his wife had just died in the ICU earlier that day, and thus he could be retried for murder instead of just attempted murder now. So no.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Altho I don't think attempted murder should be a separate crime. I can't think of any other crimes for which there are completely different charges depending upon whether the criminal succeeded in what they tried to do.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Important consideration in this example

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_and_a_day_rule