Double Jeopardy (film)

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Double Jeopardy
Double Jeopardy DVD cover
Directed by	Bruce Beresford
Produced by	Leonard Goldberg
Written by	David Weisberg Douglas Cook
Starring	Tommy Lee Jones Ashley Judd Bruce Greenwood
Music by	Normand Corbeil
Cinematography	Peter James
Editing by	Mark Warner
Distributed by	Paramount
Release date(s)	September 24, 1999
Running time	105 min.
Language	English
Budget	$70 million
IMDb profile

Double Jeopardy is a film made in 1999 starring Tommy Lee Jones and Ashley Judd, about a woman who is framed by her husband for his murder. She serves several years in prison and then emerges bent on finding her husband and son.

The movie explores the ramifications of a misinterpretation of the legal doctrine of double jeopardy, which is a constitutional right in the United States granted by the Fifth Amendment. A character in the movie advises Judd's character that she could kill her husband in the middle of Times Square and the police would be powerless to do anything about it because of double jeopardy—because she had already been convicted once for his murder and served time. Both Judd's character and Jones' character repeat this theory later in the movie in order to frighten the husband in the climactic confrontation scene, though it is doubtful that either of them believe it to be accurate legal advice, especially as Jones' character is an ex-law professor.

[edit] Plot Hole

The advice stated in the film is actually a misrepresentation of the legal doctrine. The homicide being committed would be an entirely different crime from the subject of the first trial — double jeopardy is based on whether the defendant is being retried for charges arising out of the same transaction or occurrence. Therefore, it is possible for Judd's character to be tried and convicted a second time without encountering any constitutional infirmity. The "error" in the movie is made by a character in the story only, as the plot of the movie itself does not assume the truth of the erroneous interpretation of the principle of double jeopardy.