Also known as: acquittal · acquittals · acquitted · acquitting · not guilty verdict · judgment of acquittal
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A judicial determination that the defendant is not guilty of the charged offense. The judgment terminates the prosecution in the defendant's favor and often carries preclusive effect under double jeopardy principles.
Aaron Adams, suffering from severe schizophrenia, set fire to a vacant building believing it was emitting mind-control signals. Medical experts testified that he would not have committed arson but for the disease. The court entered an acquittal because the offense resulted from his mental condition.
Aisha Ahmed was acquitted of robbery after the jury found she was not the masked assailant. State prosecutors later charged her with the same robbery against a second victim based on identical conduct. The court dismissed the new charge because the acquittal resolved the identity issue in her favor.
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Alfred Ashford was acquitted of robbing a convenience store when identity was the sole contested issue. Prosecutors then attempted to charge him with robbing a different clerk during the same incident. The court barred the second prosecution because the acquittal necessarily decided the identity question.
Antonio Alvarado moved for acquittal after the government rested in his bank-fraud trial. The evidence showed only ambiguous wire transfers without proof of intent to defraud. The court granted the motion and entered judgment because no rational jury could find the elements proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Ava Adebayo, diagnosed with severe impulse-control disorder, repeatedly struck her neighbor during an episode she could not suppress. Evidence established that mental illness prevented her from conforming conduct to the law. The court entered an acquittal under the irresistible-impulse standard.
Adam Anderson was acquitted of arson for burning an abandoned warehouse. Prosecutors later charged him with insurance fraud arising from the same fire. The court permitted the second prosecution because the fraud offense required proof of an intent to obtain insurance proceeds that arson did not.
An acquittal bars retrial when it resolves an ultimate fact in the defendant's favor. Collateral estoppel embodied in the Double Jeopardy Clause prevents relitigation of that fact in a later case arising from the same conduct.
A Rule 29 judgment of acquittal for insufficient evidence is equivalent to an acquittal on the merits. Double jeopardy therefore bars retrial even if the judgment is later reversed on appeal.
Acquittal is required under the Durham rule when the offense is the product of mental disease or defect, under the irresistible-impulse test when the defendant could not control conduct, and under M'Naghten when the defendant lacked capacity to know the act was wrong.
An acquittal in another jurisdiction bars a subsequent prosecution only if the offenses require proof of the same facts and address substantially the same harm. Separate sovereigns may otherwise prosecute the same conduct.
…State could appeal since the judgment below directed that he be retried. In the event respondent was successful in obtaining an acquittal on retrial, however, under California law the State would have no appeal. Satisfied that in these circumstances the decision below constituted a final judgment under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3)…