“Remember the guys in the Rodney King case were tried twice, with the 2nd trial being for violating civil rights? The legal reasoning, as I understand it, was that the trials were for different legal violations.
Ditto OJ Simpson, sued for wrongful death in civil court after his acquittal in the criminal trial.”
You are mixing up several things.
When a “sovereign”, either the State or Federal government, tries you in a criminal matter, they have to bring ALL CHARGES at one time. The State (any State) cannot try you for manslaughter and then try you for murder based on the same incident. So “for different legal violations” is not the criterion.
The difference is State vs. Federal. The State can try you for violating state criminal law. The Feds can try to a second time for violation of Federal criminal statutes, if the act you did was a federal crime as well as a state crime. So even though they are “different legal violations”, the key is that they are different “sovereigns” - the State upholding state criminal law, the Feds upholding Federal criminal law. The notion of two different sovereigns is a function of our federal system.
This is the same reason that a Governor can pardon a murderer convicted in State Court, but the President cannot. Conversly, if you are convicted of a Federal crime, the President can pardon you and the Governor cannot.
The OJ situation is different, because it involves Criminal vs. Civil liability. That was all within State court.
OJ was found not guilty, with a “beyond reasonable doubt” standard, for criminal murder. That was the State prosecuting him.
In the subsequent civil trial, it was his VICTIMS’ families suing him for wrongful death. The families had a claim against OJ irrespective of what the State did or did not do. If someone injures you, through a criminal act, your right to sue them does not disappear just because the State decides to prosecute the perpetrator for a crime.
Civil courts have a lower standard of proof. Instead of “beyond a reasonable doubt”, it was, in OJ’s case, “more probably than not”. So getting OJ in civil court was an easier case to make. But it was not double jeopardy, because the second case did not involve the possibility of punishment by the State (or the Feds, for that matter).
We could write a treatise on this; bet there are a bunch of law reviews that are already half-written.
On the criminal side of this, the “dual sovereignty” makes a lot of sense going back to the time the Constitution was ratified. Strong lines between states and the federal. BUT, the federal (without constitutional amendment) became a feral givernment leaving behind constitutional limitations that it is a givernment of enumerated powers - specific, limited. Had the feral givernment stayed inside that enumerated powers box, this would be really a non-issue. But because the ferals have basically expanded its power into everything, including criminal laws, and with judicial blessing for past 80 years, my instincts tell me that dual sovereignty justification is much weaker doctrine and the double jeopardy position is stronger. I need to read the court opinions nonetheless to see where I come down on this and how expansive the ruling is. Many times the court likes to limit itself to the facts and law at hand ... except when they do things like advance leftists causes, homo marriage, etc.
But the amendment does not refer to statutes, it simply says no person shall be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy. The "offence" is the action, not the "violation of a statute." Else one can be tried any number of times for a crime, in any number of courts. If they'd meant violation of a statute they'd have said that, wouldn't they?