587 U.S. 678 (2019)
In November 2015, a Mobile, Alabama police officer stopped Terance Martez Gamble for a damaged headlight.1 Upon detecting the smell of marijuana, the officer searched Gamble's car and discovered a loaded 9-mm handgun.2 At the time, Gamble was a convicted felon based on a prior second-degree robbery conviction.3
Gamble pleaded guilty in Alabama state court to the offense of possessing a firearm as a felon under Alabama law.4 He received a sentence that was mostly suspended.5 Federal prosecutors later brought an indictment against him for the identical conduct under federal law.6
In the federal proceeding, Gamble filed a motion to dismiss the indictment.7 The District Court denied the motion.8 Gamble entered a guilty plea in federal court but preserved his ability to challenge the ruling on appeal.9
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the District Court's decision.10 The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to consider the matter.11
Whether the dual-sovereignty doctrine under the Double Jeopardy Clause should be overruled?12
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides that no person may be twice put in jeopardy for the same offence.13 Under the dual-sovereignty doctrine, an offence under one sovereign's laws is not the same offence as an offence under the laws of another sovereign.14 This follows because each sovereign defines its own laws and offences.15
No. The text of the Clause protects against successive prosecutions for the same offence rather than the same conduct.16 An offence is defined by the sovereign whose law is violated.17 Therefore, different sovereigns prosecute different offences.18 Applying this rule to the established facts, the Alabama state conviction involves separate sovereigns from the federal indictment.19
They do not constitute prosecutions for the same offence.20 Precedent from cases such as United States v. Lanza through Heath v. Alabama spanning 170 years, combined with the insufficiency of Gamble's historical evidence to justify departure from that chain, confirms that the doctrine is not demonstrably erroneous and should not be overruled.21
The dual-sovereignty doctrine should not be overruled.22
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Thomas concurs in the judgment affirming the Court of Appeals.23 He agrees that the historical record does not show the dual-sovereignty doctrine to be demonstrably erroneous so as to require overruling. The founding generation foresaw limited potential for overlapping prosecutions by the States and the Federal Government.24
He writes separately about stare decisis.25 The Court's usual multifactor approach to stare decisis is flawed because it tends to elevate erroneous precedent over the text of the Constitution.26 The judicial power is the duty to say what the law is, not to substitute judicial preferences for text.27
Stare decisis should not require adherence to precedents that are demonstrably erroneous interpretations of constitutional or statutory text.28 Where a prior decision is demonstrably incorrect, courts should not follow it.29 In other cases where reasonable minds can differ, precedent has a role to play.30
Applying these principles here, the record does not show that the dual-sovereignty doctrine is demonstrably erroneous, and he therefore concurs in the judgment.31
Justice Ginsburg dissents and would reverse Gamble's federal conviction.32 She argues that the separate-sovereigns doctrine rests on treating federal and state governments as separate sovereigns while sovereignty ultimately resides in the people.33 This pattern allowing two governments that together are the United States to punish the same person twice for the same offense is incompatible with protecting individual liberty.34
She further contends that the doctrine's justifications do not withstand scrutiny.35 Incorporation of the Double Jeopardy Clause against the States and the growth of federal criminal law further undercut any need for this doctrine.36 Stare decisis does not compel retention of the separate-sovereigns rule here because of doctrinal and practical changes since the doctrine's adoption.37
Justice Gorsuch dissents and would hold that a second prosecution by a different sovereign within the United States for the same offense violates the Double Jeopardy Clause.38 He maintains that the separate-sovereigns exception is inconsistent with the Constitution's text, original public meaning, structure, and history.39 The term offence in the Fifth Amendment was understood at the founding as referring to a transgression or wrong, not a technical sovereign-specific statutory label.40
The Framers adopted protections against double jeopardy because of a long-standing concern that government should not be able to repeatedly prosecute a person until it secures a conviction.41 He concludes that stare decisis does not rescue the doctrine when considered in light of original meaning and subsequent legal developments including incorporation and the dramatic growth of federal criminal law.42