Ragano v. United States

Background

A man was first charged in a three-count tax indictment covering 1967 and 1968. A jury acquitted him on two counts but convicted him on one count about treating a payment as a long-term capital gain. That conviction was later reversed on appeal. Before the retrial, a new six-count indictment added a conspiracy charge and additional tax-related counts for other years. One count was dismissed, the defendant challenged being tried again on closely related charges, lost that challenge, was convicted on five counts at trial, and the appeals court affirmed.

Reasoning

The key question here is whether a person can be prosecuted again on extra charges that arise from the very same criminal episode. Justice Brennan, writing in dissent, explained that the Fifth Amendment’s protection against being tried twice for the same offense should normally prevent separate prosecutions for all charges that grow out of a single transaction. He said the expanded indictment improperly went beyond the original charge and that the Court should have reviewed the case to correct that error.

Real world impact

Because the Court declined to take the case, the convictions affirmed by the lower courts remain in place. That means prosecutors can pursue broader indictments in this instance, and defendants who face new, related counts after an earlier trial may have fewer protections in practice. The ruling here is a denial of review, not a final decision on the underlying constitutional rule, so the legal debate about when separate prosecutions are barred continues.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Brennan expressly would have granted review and reversed the convictions beyond the original charge, citing his earlier opinions and Ashe v. Swenson to support a broad protection against multiple prosecutions arising from one episode.