Victor Smith examines the circumstances in which a prosecution does not proceed when the accused has faced that same or similar peril before
Double jeopardy may enable a defendant to:
- enter a plea of autrefois in reliance on a previous conviction or acquittal for the same offence
- seek a stay of the proceedings as an abuse of process in reliance on a previous trial on the same or similar facts or same incident
- seek a stay of the proceedings as an abuse of process in reliance on an assurance of no prosecution (to be covered in Pt 2)
Double jeopardy, in its purest form, is encapsulated by the phrases ‘autrefois convict’ and ‘autrefois acquit’ meaning that the accused has been previously convicted or acquitted of the same offence and hence should not face the same peril again. The parameters of the autrefois principle were identified by the House of Lords in R v Connelly [1964] AC 1254, [1963] 3 All ER 510 as being quite narrow. Lord
