114
Opinion of the Court
making a hung jury's failure to convict provisionally final, subject to change if the case must be retried anyway.
Second, the dictum in Scott does not even embrace the present case. The petitioner here did not "insist" upon a merits determination, but to the contrary asked that the jury be dismissed as hung. As the dissent recognizes, when the jury announced that it was deadlocked, petitioner "move[d] 'that the jury be discharged' and that a life sentence be entered under [Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 42,] § 9711(c)(1)(v)." Post, at 125, n. 5. It is no response to say that "[t]he judge did not grant [the] motion," but instead made a legal determination whether petitioner was entitled to the judgment he sought. Ibid. Surely double-jeopardy protections cannot hinge on whether a trial court characterizes its action as self-initiated or in response to motion. Cf. Scott, supra, at 96. What actually happened in this case is the same as what happened in Scott, where we denied double-jeopardy protection: (1) the defendant moved for entry of a judgment in his favor on procedural grounds (there, delay in indictment; here, a hung jury); (2) the judge measured facts (there, the length of delay; here, the likelihood of the jury's producing a verdict) against a legal standard to determine whether such relief was appropriate; and (3) concluding that it was, granted the relief.
Nor, in these circumstances, does the prospect of a second capital-sentencing proceeding implicate any of the "perils against which the Double Jeopardy Clause seeks to protect." Post, at 124 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). The dissent stresses that a defendant in such circumstances is "subject to the 'or-deal' of a second full-blown life or death trial," which " 'compel[s] [him] to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity.' " Ibid. (quoting Green v. United States, supra, at 187); see also post, at 127. But as even the dissent must admit, post, at 125, we have not found this concern determinative of double jeopardy in all circumstances. And it should not be so here. This case hardly presents the specter of "an
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