Free Republic

The federal government prosecuted Merle Denezpi twice for the same crime. It also punished him twice: the first time with 140 days in a federal detention center, the second time with a prison sentence more than 70 times as long.Although that may seem like an obvious violation of the Fifth Amendment's ban on double jeopardy, the Supreme Court last week ruled that it wasn't. As the six justices in the majority saw it, that puzzling conclusion was the logical result of the Court's counterintuitive precedents on this subject. The Fifth Amendment says no person shall "be subject for the same...

In August, the Environmental Protection Agency, in their infinite wisdom, decided to let three million gallons of toxic water from the abandoned Gold King Mine contaminate the Animas River. The EPA was sent there on a clean up mission, as the mine had been abandoned for nearly a decade–and accumulating hazardous water waste as a result. All told, the arsenic levels in the river are now 300 times the normal rate, with lead levels at 3,500 times what is considered healthy. The Navajo nation slammed the president’s inaction over the Animas river spill in Colorado that is threatening their...