Burks v. United States

In Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 11 (III) (98 SC 2141, 57 LE2d 1) (1978) the United States Supreme Court held that when a conviction is reversed due to insufficient evidence, the defendant cannot be retried without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution. But in that same decision, the Supreme Court also distinguished between reversals based on procedural errors and reversals based upon insufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, stating that "reversal for trial error, as distinguished from evidentiary insufficiency, does not constitute a decision to the effect that the government has failed to prove its case. As such, it implies nothing with respect to the guilt or innocence of the defendant." Id. at 15 (III). "Venue is wholly neutral; it is a question of procedure, more than anything else, and it does not either prove or disprove the guilt of the accused." Jones, supra, 272 Ga. at 904 (4). Thus, "a failure to properly establish venue does not bar retrial, because evidence of venue does not go to the guilt or innocence of the accused, and hence it does not invoke double jeopardy concerns." Id.