I am doing a paper in class where the scenerio is that three police officers arrest a suspect that they think is into child pornography and instead of taking the suspect straight to jail they stop off at an area warehouse docks with his hands and feet bound by handcuffs to scare him into telling the location of the children in question. By accident the suspect falls into the water where it is too deep and the officers can not reach him in time before he drowns. the question is can the attorney general try them again after they were found not quilty in a state court(jury was not sypathetic to the victim because they thought he was involved with child porn) and retry him under the federal law?> You also find out that the FBI was investigating the suspect and found he had no connection to the actual children or the pics, he just found them on a website and copied them and sent them through emails to other people.
Thanks for any help
T

Yes, the feds can charge a person with a crime regardless of if a state convicted or aquitted them. A US attorney though would prosecute not the ATT general as far as my knowledge goes. I don't think the ATT General himself is ever the lead prosecutor?

In certain crimes, such as murder, federal jurisdicton MUST be etablished, such as an interstate element, use of the mail to arrange it, crossing state lines, etc. You have to read the exact section # in the federal code to see how it is worded.

You are refering to double jeopardy being triggered for successive prosecutions. The states and the feds are not the same sovereign.

You can research: seperate sovereigns + double jeopardy: or the like.

Oh I forgot to add, when law enforcement violates the constitutional rights of a citizen the charge "may" be tried under "color of law" statutes, especially on the federal level, you can research that. Color of law charges do not apply to the plain citizenry.