120
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
I
The standard way for a defendant to secure a final judgment in her favor is to gain an acquittal.2 This case involves the atypical situation in which a defendant prevails by final judgment without an acquittal. Unusual as the situation is, our double jeopardy jurisprudence recognizes its existence. In Scott, the Court stated that the "primary purpose" of the Double Jeopardy Clause is to "protect the integrity" of final determinations of guilt or innocence. 437 U. S., at 92. We acknowledged, however, that "this Court has also developed a body of law guarding the separate but related interest of a defendant in avoiding multiple prosecutions even where no final determination of guilt or innocence has been made." Ibid. "Such interests," we observed, "may be involved in two different situations: the first, in which the trial judge declares a mistrial; the second, in which the trial judge terminates the proceedings favorably to the defendant on a basis not related to factual guilt or innocence." Ibid.
The first category—mistrials—is instructive, although the case at hand does not fit within that category. In deciding whether reprosecution is permissible after a mistrial, "this Court has balanced the valued right of a defendant to have his trial completed by the particular tribunal summoned to sit in judgment on him against the public interest in insuring
2 The Court has many times said that the Double Jeopardy Clause protects the integrity of "final judgments." See, e. g., Crist v. Bretz, 437 U. S. 28, 33 (1978) ("A primary purpose" served by the Double Jeopardy Clause is "akin to that served by the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel—to preserve the finality of judgments."); United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 92 (1978) ("the primary purpose of the Double Jeopardy Clause was to protect the integrity of a final judgment"). In such declarations, the Court appears to have used "final judgment" interchangeably with "acquittal." See Crist, 437 U. S., at 33 (referring to the English common-law rule that "a defendant has been put in jeopardy only when there has been a conviction or an acquittal—after a complete trial"); Scott, 437 U. S., at 92 (equating the term "final judgment" with a "final determination of guilt or innocence").
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