__NOTOC__ ''Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber'', 329 U.S. 459 (1947), is a case in which the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Supreme Court was asked whether imposing capital punishment (the

electric chair An electric chair is a device used to execute an individual by electrocution. When used, the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes fastened on the head and leg. This execution method, ...

) a second time, after it failed in an attempt to execute Willie Francis in 1946,The first time rancisfound himself in the chair on May 3, 1946, it was improperly setup as the two in charge of setting it up, Captain Ephie Foster and an inmate who was also an electrician, Vincent Venezia, were drunk at the time. When the switch was flipped to kill the boy, rather than this happening, he simply started jerking around violently in the chair. "The Boy Who Was Executed Twice," Today I found out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdWXODwOcds January 10, 2017 (Retrieved February 12, 2017) constituted a violation of the United States Constitution. The issues raised surrounded the

double jeopardy In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...

clause of the 5th Amendment, and the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the 8th Amendment, as made applicable to the State of

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

via the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. In an opinion by Justice Stanley Forman Reed, which three other justices ( Chief Justice

Vinson VINSON is a family of voice encryption devices used by U.S. and allied military and law enforcement, based on the NSA's classified Suite A SAVILLE encryption algorithm and 16 kbit/s CVSD audio compression. It replaces the Vietnam War-era N ...

and Associate Justices Hugo Black and Robert H. Jackson) joined, and with which Justice

Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...

concurred, the Court held that re-executing Francis did not constitute double jeopardy or cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Reed wrote,

Our minds rebel against permitting the same sovereignty to punish an accused twice for the same offense. But where the accused successfully seeks review of a conviction, there is no double jeopardy upon a new trial. Even where a state obtains a new trial after conviction because of errors, while an accused may be placed on trial a second time, it is not the sort of hardship to the accused that is forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment ... For we see no difference from a constitutional point of view between a new trial for error of law at the instance of the state that results in a death sentence instead of imprisonment for life and an execution that follows a failure of equipment. When an accident, with no suggestion of malevolence, prevents the consummation of a sentence, the state's subsequent course in the administration of its criminal law is not affected on that account by any requirement of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. We find no double jeopardy here which can be said to amount to a denial of federal due process in the proposed execution. (Citations omitted).

Dissenting, however, Justice

Harold Burton Harold Burton may refer to: * Harold H. Burton (1888–1964), mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, member of the United States Senate and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States * Harold W. Burton Harold William Burton (October 23, 188 ...

(joined by Justices

William O. Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often ci ...

Frank Murphy William Francis Murphy (April 13, 1890July 19, 1949) was an American politician, lawyer and jurist from Michigan. He was a Democrat who was named to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1940 after a political career that included serving ...

, and

Wiley Rutledge Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr. (July 20, 1894 – September 10, 1949) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1943 to 1949. The ninth and final justice appointed by President Frankli ...

) argued,

How many deliberate and intentional reapplications of electric current does it take to produce a cruel, unusual and unconstitutional punishment? While five applications would be more cruel and unusual than one, the uniqueness of the present case demonstrates that, today, two separated applications are sufficiently 'cruel and unusual' to be prohibited. If five attempts would be 'cruel and unusual,' it would be difficult to draw the line between two, three, four and five. It is not difficult, however, as we here contend, to draw the line between the one continuous application prescribed by statute and any other application of the current. Lack of intent that the first application be less than fatal is not material. The intent of the executioner cannot lessen the torture or excuse the result.

Francis was successfully executed the following year.

References

External links

* {{US8thAmendment United States Supreme Court cases Capital punishment in Louisiana 1947 in United States case law United States Double Jeopardy Clause case law Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause and death penalty case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Vinson Court

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