15-108 Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle

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Supreme Court

Case Name: Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle

Case No.: 15-108

The double jeopardy clause bars Puerto Rico and the United States from successively prosecuting a single person for the same conduct under equivalent criminal laws

“Ordinarily, a person cannot be prosecuted twice for the same offense. But under the dual-sovereignty doctrine, the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar successive prosecutions if they are brought by separate sovereigns. See, e.g., United States v. Lanza, 260 U. S. 377, 382. Yet “sovereignty” in this context does not bear its ordinary meaning. This Court does not examine the extent of control that one prosecuting entity wields over the other, the degree to which an entity exercises self-governance, or a government’s more particular ability to enact and enforce its own criminal laws. Rather, the test hinges on a single criterion: the “ultimate source” of the power undergirding the respective prosecutions. United States v. Wheeler, 435 U. S. 313, 320. If two entities derive their power to punish from independent sources, then they may bring successive prosecutions. Conversely, if those entities draw their power from the same ultimate source, then they may not. Under that approach, the States are separate sovereigns from the Federal Government and from one another. Because States rely on “authority originally belonging to them before admission to the Union and preserved to them by the Tenth Amendment,” state prosecutions have their roots in an “inherent sovereignty” unconnected to the U. S. Congress. Heath v. Alabama, 474 U. S. 82, 89. For similar reasons, Indian tribes also count as separate sovereigns. A tribe’s power to punish pre-existed the Union, and so a tribal prosecution, like a State’s, is “attributable in no way to any delegation . . . of federal authority.” Wheeler, 435 U. S., at 328. Conversely, a municipality cannot count as a sovereign distinct from a State, because it receives its power, in the first instance, from the State. See, e.g., Waller v. Florida, 397 U. S. 387, 395. And most pertinent here, this Court concluded in the early 20th century that U. S. territories—including an earlier incarnation of Puerto Rico itself—are not sovereigns distinct from the United States. Grafton v. United States, 206 U. S. 333. The Court reasoned that “the territorial and federal laws [were] creations emanating from the same sovereignty,” Puerto Rico v. Shell Co. (P. R.), Ltd., 302 U. S. 253, 264, and so federal and territorial prosecutors do not derive their powers from independent sources of authority.”

Affirmed

Concurring: GINSBURG, THOMAS,

Dissenting: BREYER, SOTOMAYOR

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