Having updated Breaking News to reflect the comments of Neilson’s attorney Christi McCoy, we return to the previously announced bitching about review of the three counts reportedly subject to retrial and the doctrine of collateral estoppel applied to the double jeopardy clause:
Collateral estoppel “means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit. (Georgetown Law Journal)
One would think FBI Agent Hal Neilson’s “trial by grammar” would have ended “The Case of the Misplaced Modifers” – but, apparently, that remains to be seen despite this 2008 USSC decision that held:
An apparent inconsistency between a jury’s verdict of acquittal on some counts and its failure to return a verdict on other counts does not affect the acquittals’ preclusive force under the Double Jeopardy Clause.
In this same USSC decision, the Court wrote, “To identify what a jury necessarily determined at trial, courts should scrutinize the jury’s decisions, not its failures to decide”. Consequently, I’ve set this post up so you can take a look at the counts the jury decided, the quick summary of key points in the NEMS360 report, and the listed on the court’s notice of new trial. (In other words, I’m done for the day – and when I’m too done in to bitch about injustice, watch out!)
Neilson was found NOT guilty on Count Two and Count Five of the Indictment and cannot be retried on these counts or any counts that would re-litigate a decided issue: Continue reading “FBI Agent Hal Neilson may face new trial by “selective punctuation” in “The Case of the Misplaced Modifiers””
