Cite as: 537 U. S. 101 (2003)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
The Court today holds that the state-mandated entry of a life sentence after a jury deadlock, measured against the Double Jeopardy Clause, does not block retrial of the life or death question. The Court so rules because the life sentence, although final under state law, see id., at 25-26, is not the equivalent of "an acquittal on the merits," ante, at 107- 108 (quoting Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 211 (1984)). Our double jeopardy case law does indeed "attac[h] particular significance to an acquittal," United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 91 (1978); that jurisprudence accords "absolute finality to a jury's verdict of acquittal[,] no matter how erroneous its decision," Burks v. United States, 437 U. S. 1, 16 (1978). And, as the Court stresses, the hung jury in Sattazahn's sentencing proceeding did not "acqui[t]" him "on the merits." Ante, at 107 (internal quotation marks omitted). But these two undebatable points are not inevitably dispositive of this case, for our decisions recognize that jeopardy can terminate in circumstances other than an acquittal. Cf. Richardson, 468 U. S., at 325 ("[T]he Double Jeopardy Clause by its terms applies only if there has been some event, such as an acquittal, which terminates the original jeopardy." (Emphasis added.)).
In no prior case have we decided whether jeopardy is terminated by the entry of a state-mandated sentence when the jury has deadlocked on the sentencing question. As I see it, the question is genuinely debatable, with tenable argument supporting each side. Comprehending our double jeopardy decisions in light of the underlying purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause, I conclude that jeopardy does terminate in such circumstances. I would hold, as herein explained, that once the trial court entered a final judgment of life for Sattazahn, the Double Jeopardy Clause barred Pennsylvania from seeking the death penalty a second time.
ardson v. United States, 468 U. S. 317, 318, 325 (1984); United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564, 570 (1977).
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