Status message

  • Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium is no longer available. Effective June 2025, personnel changes and resource limitations have made it impossible for us to maintain the Compendium to the standard of excellence that the School of Government strives to achieve. We appreciate those who have used and supported the Compendium over the years. We will continue to publish and archive summaries of North Carolina appellate cases concerning criminal law on the North Carolina Criminal Law Blog.

  • Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium is no longer available. Effective June 2025, personnel changes and resource limitations have made it impossible for us to maintain the Compendium to the standard of excellence that the School of Government strives to achieve. We appreciate those who have used and supported the Compendium over the years. We will continue to publish and archive summaries of North Carolina appellate cases concerning criminal law on the North Carolina Criminal Law Blog.

  • Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium is no longer available. Effective June 2025, personnel changes and resource limitations have made it impossible for us to maintain the Compendium to the standard of excellence that the School of Government strives to achieve. We appreciate those who have used and supported the Compendium over the years. We will continue to publish and archive summaries of North Carolina appellate cases concerning criminal law on the North Carolina Criminal Law Blog.
  • Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium is no longer available. Effective June 2025, personnel changes and resource limitations have made it impossible for us to maintain the Compendium to the standard of excellence that the School of Government strives to achieve. We appreciate those who have used and supported the Compendium over the years. We will continue to publish and archive summaries of North Carolina appellate cases concerning criminal law on the North Carolina Criminal Law Blog.
  • Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium is no longer available. Effective June 2025, personnel changes and resource limitations have made it impossible for us to maintain the Compendium to the standard of excellence that the School of Government strives to achieve. We appreciate those who have used and supported the Compendium over the years. We will continue to publish and archive summaries of North Carolina appellate cases concerning criminal law on the North Carolina Criminal Law Blog.
  • Smith’s Criminal Case Compendium is no longer available. Effective June 2025, personnel changes and resource limitations have made it impossible for us to maintain the Compendium to the standard of excellence that the School of Government strives to achieve. We appreciate those who have used and supported the Compendium over the years. We will continue to publish and archive summaries of North Carolina appellate cases concerning criminal law on the North Carolina Criminal Law Blog.

Smith's Criminal Case Compendium

Table of Contents

Evans v. Michigan, 568 U.S. 313 (Feb. 20, 2013)

Return To Search
Criminal Procedure > Double Jeopardy

When the trial court enters a directed verdict of acquittal based on a mistake of law the erroneous acquittal constitutes an acquittal for double jeopardy purposes barring further prosecution. After the State rested in an arson prosecution, the trial court entered a directed verdict of acquittal on grounds that the State had provided insufficient evidence of a particular element of the offense. However, the trial court erred; the unproven “element” was not actually a required element at all. The Court noted that it had previously held in Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 211 (1984), that a judicial acquittal premised upon a “misconstruction” of a criminal statute is an “acquittal on the merits . . . [that] bars retrial.” It found “no meaningful constitutional distinction between a trial court’s ‘misconstruction’ of a statute and its erroneous addition of a statutory element.” It thus held that the midtrial acquittal in the case at hand was an acquittal for double jeopardy purposes.