there is absolutely nothing stopping her from simply ignoring Smith until the trial, waiting until the jury is seated, then essentially dismiss the case for whatever reason she wants once double jeopardy is attached and the dismissal is not appealable. If she is willing to endure the professional fallout from that decision, there is literally nothing Smith can do to stop her.
Could Smith split the pile of stolen files in half and simply pursue charges on half the files? Assuming jeopardy is attached on the case for the first traunch of the files and Trump is found innocent because of Cannon’s trickery, Smith could then file a new case with the second traunch of the files and no jeopardy from the prior trial would apply because he’d be seeking prosecution on “new” files?
Could Smith split the pile of stolen files in half and simply pursue charges on half the files?
Only if the cases are separate criminal acts. If I murder someone in Philadelphia and six months later, I murder someone else in Pittsburgh, the DA can prosecute me for one of the two murders and keep the other case in his back pocket in case something goes wrong to ensure that I stay in jail.
But let’s say I only killed one person. On a typical murder charge, there’s usually a small list of felonies (Murder, assault, illegal weapon possession, civil rights violations, etc. etc. etc.). The DA can’t bring a weak case against me for murder, then decide to try again and charge me for a weapons violation in order to keep me in jail, and then an assault charge if that fails too, etc. That is essentially an end-run around double jeopardy and is explicitly forbidden. If it weren’t, the double jeopardy protections of the 5th amendment would cease to exist as the lawyer could just divvy up the charges among an endless stream of cases until something finally sticks.
Could Smith split the pile of stolen files in half and simply pursue charges on half the files? Assuming jeopardy is attached on the case for the first traunch of the files and Trump is found innocent because of Cannon’s trickery, Smith could then file a new case with the second traunch of the files and no jeopardy from the prior trial would apply because he’d be seeking prosecution on “new” files?
Only if the cases are separate criminal acts. If I murder someone in Philadelphia and six months later, I murder someone else in Pittsburgh, the DA can prosecute me for one of the two murders and keep the other case in his back pocket in case something goes wrong to ensure that I stay in jail.
But let’s say I only killed one person. On a typical murder charge, there’s usually a small list of felonies (Murder, assault, illegal weapon possession, civil rights violations, etc. etc. etc.). The DA can’t bring a weak case against me for murder, then decide to try again and charge me for a weapons violation in order to keep me in jail, and then an assault charge if that fails too, etc. That is essentially an end-run around double jeopardy and is explicitly forbidden. If it weren’t, the double jeopardy protections of the 5th amendment would cease to exist as the lawyer could just divvy up the charges among an endless stream of cases until something finally sticks.