In the fifth week of a jury trial on healthcare crimes and conspiracy, Petitioner Scott Breimeister and his co-defendants discovered that prosecutors had coached a witness to provide false testimony and create misleading exhibits. The district court ordered the government to produce all agent reports and witness interview notes. Reams of previously undisclosed documents were produced over the next week.

Following this, the court declared a mistrial of its own accord, then recessed without deciding whether the government engaged in misconduct, and even though Mr. Breimeister had filed an anticipatory objection to a mistrial.

Mr. Breimeister moved under the Double Jeopardy Clause to bar a retrial. The district court denied this motion. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that Mr. Breimeister “impliedly” consented to the mistrial and that declaring a mistrial was necessary even though both sides presented alternatives to this course of action. Mr. Breimeister now asks the Supreme Court to review the case.

Cato joined an amicus brief filed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) urging the Supreme Court to grant Mr. Breimeister’s cert petition and reverse the decisions below. Mistrial decisions are high stakes and made in hectic, fast-paced trial environments. Such circumstances require resolving any ambiguities in favor of defendants’ liberty and Double Jeopardy rights. Defendants bear the emotional, financial, and strategic burdens of successive trials, and they should not be penalized for prosecutorial self-inflicted errors. First principles mandate strong constitutional guard-rails for defendants—ones the courts below disregarded here.