United States v. Mondragon, No. 12-30360 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseAfter the jury had been empaneled, the district court accepted defendant's guilty plea, declared a mistrial, and discharged the jury. After successfully moving to rescind his guilty plea, defendant sought to avoid trial altogether by invoking the Double Jeopardy Clause's protection of his right to have the first empaneled jury decide his case. The court concluded that, in this case, it was difficult to understand why defendant should be treated differently from one who was coerced into pleading guilty before a jury was empaneled. Defendant already had achieved a remedy for the alleged violation of Rule 11 - withdrawal from the plea agreement. The Double Jeopardy Clause protects a defendant from improper attempts by the prosecutor or the judge to avoid having the empaneled jury reach a verdict, but it did not give an added benefit to a defendant when alleged misconduct happened to occur after the jury had been empaneled but bears no relations to the identity, composition, or proceeding of that particular jury. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a defendant’s motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds a second superseding indictment in a case in which the district court declared a mistrial after the defendant reached a (since- rescinded) plea agreement during a settlement conference that took place after the jury had been empaneled. The panel held that the district court, which declared the mistrial after the defendant stated that he did not object, did not “goad” the defendant into consenting to the mistrial by acquiescing in the defendant’s own request for the settlement conference, and that the Double Jeopardy Clause therefore does not bar retrial.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.