West v. Commonwealth - Subject: Double Jeopardy and the ends of justice exception under Va Supreme Court Rule 5A:18
(1) If the prosecutor mentions double jeopardy concerns in his argument against the Defense's motion to strike the evidence and the only time the Defense mentions double jeopardy concerns is in the sentencing hearing when he states that the prosecution must elect between the two charges it is not enough to preserve the double jeopardy argument for an appeal.
(2) The "ends of justice" exception can be invoked when some crucial procedures are not followed by the trial court, i.e. jury instructions without the proper elements of the alleged crime.
However, the fact that an error is a clear, substantial, material violation of the constitutional bar against double jeopardy is not enough to qualify for the ends of justice exception. This argument is labeled "tautological."
Comment: Yeah, I had to look up tautological to make sure I had the right definition. I understood it to mean "self-sustaining only under its own internal logic." I think that's basically correct but I checked anyway. Webster online defines it as "true by virtue of its logical form alone" and Webster's 3d New International defines it as "true purely by the meanings of component terms."
So, if I'm understanding the term correctly the court says that it is only internally logical to the petitioner's argument that a clear, substantial, material violation of the constitution's bar against double jeopardy is an unjust error. When viewed outside the petitioner's argument there is no unjust error even if the constitutional right against double jeopardy has been violated (a number of cases are cited). The Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia trump the United States Constitution.
2 comments:
True by logical form alone means when symbolized (Like (x)(Px then Qx)) the sybolized statement is true regardless of the truth value of the parts (Px, Qx).
So, for Px then Qx, Px then Qx comes out true when in all cases except for when the anticedant (Px) is true and the consequent (Qx) is false. Since there are truth value substitutions where this statement comes out true, and some where it comes out false, it is labeled Contingent.
Now consider P and ~P. No matter the truth value of P, this statement will come out false. In otherwords, if P is true, the statement is false, and if P is false, the statement is false. Thus, it is a contradiction.
Now consider P v ~P. No matter the truth value of P, the statement comes out true. These are the tautologies.
Examples of Tautologies include:
P v ~P
If (x)Px then (y)(Fy then Py)
If (P and P then Q) then Q
So what you have in your court case is:
"However, the fact that an error is a clear, substantial, material violation of the constitutional bar against double jeopardy is not enough to qualify for the ends of justice exception."
For this to be tautology, then no matter what the truth value of the logical parts, the sentence is true. It's obviously not tautology. It doesn't even seem to have any parts. I think this could just be symbolized as P, and statements of that form do not come out true regardless of truth values assigned to components.
Here is the exact argument the court labeled "tautological":
"He simply claims the error is clear, substantial, and material because he was subjected to double jeopardy."
How does this statment fit (or not) under the model as you explain it?
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