In this Bertie County case, the defendant was charged with first-degree murder and felony possession of a weapon by a prisoner for an alleged fight at Bertie Correctional Institution that left another inmate dead. After court adjourned on the first day of the defendant’s trial, one of the State’s witnesses, the prison’s assistant superintendent, told the prosecutor for the first time that the defendant’s blood-stained clothes from the day of the alleged incident were at the prison and had never been turned over to law enforcement. (The prosecutor was clearly frustrated by the oversight and the trial judge called it “ridiculous.”) The next morning, the State moved for a mistrial, arguing that it would be unfair to proceed with the trial without first testing the evidence, because it could be either corroborative or exculpatory depending what DNA testing showed. After a hearing on the issue, the trial court granted the State’s motion, concluding as a matter of law that “it is in the public’s interest in a fair trial” to enter a mistrial and give the SBI time to test the clothing. Almost 3 years later the case came on for a second trial before a different judge. That judge denied the defendant’s motions to dismiss both charges on double jeopardy grounds. The defendant was convicted of possession of a weapon by a prisoner, but the jury deadlocked on first-degree murder, resulting in another mistrial on that charge. On appellate review, the Court of Appeals concluded that the second trial judge erred by denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds. To grant the motion, the appellate court said, would have required a showing that the first mistrial had been properly entered for “manifest necessity.” Manifest necessity can be based on physical necessity (like when a juror falls ill), or the necessity of doing justice (like when there is evidence of jury tampering). Here, the court concluded, there was no evidence of physical necessity or misconduct by any party—just new evidence that was already in the possession of State officials, but of which the prosecution was unaware. Because the State bore the risk of proceeding to trial based on an incomplete investigation of evidence already in its possession, there was no manifest necessity justifying the mistrial in the first case. Jeopardy therefore attached and barred the State from further prosecuting the defendant. The Court of Appeals vacated the weapon possession conviction and remanded the case for dismissal of both charges.