United States v. Colón
United States v. Colón
Opinion of the Court
ORDER SUPPRESSING IDENTIFICATION EVIDENCE
The Supreme Court held in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, — U.S. -,- -, 136 S.Ct. 1863, 1869-1877, 195 L.Ed.2d 179 (2016), that for the purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause, the Commonwealth and United States governments constitute a single sovereign, in as much as the former’s power to prosecute derives from the latter’s. Thus, the Commonwealth’s prosecution, conviction, and sentence of an individual bars his subsequent prosecution by federal authorities for the same conduct under equivalent criminal law.
The issue now before us is whether a Commonwealth final judgment suppressing identification evidence should likewise bar its use in a subsequent federal prosecution based on the very same underlying facts. We answer in the affirmative.
David Santiago Colón was charged in Commonwealth court for attempted murder and violations of Articles 5.04 and 5.15 of the Puerto Rico Weapons Law. He unsuccessfully moved to suppress evidence of his identification. However, on appellate review, the intermediate court found the identification testimony below untrustworthy
After the Puerto Rico Supreme Court denied review, but prior to the case being dismissed, a federal grand jury indicted
Allowing the identification evidence issue to proceed in this forum would hence permit the same sovereign to relitigate and review a final and unsuccessful defense of a constitutional violation.
SO ORDERED.
. The Puerto Rico Court of Appeals relied on Commonwealth Supreme Court precedent which, in turn invokes Supreme Court identification procedure jurisprudence.
. There is no dispute that both the Commonwealth and federal charges emanate from the very same identification procedure.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- United States v. David Santiago COLÓN
- Cited By
- 3 cases
- Status
- Published