Anthony James Scott v. Georgia

In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963), this Court held, “[T]he suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused up on request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” Further, this Court has held that the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not ordinarily bar a retrial of a criminal defendant, even if there is prosecutorial error, unless the error was intended to provoke the request for a mistrial, or the error was because of bad faith or to harass or prejudice the defendant. Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 670 (1982). In this case, the Carroll County Superior Court and the Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia erred when they erroneously applied this Court’s foregoing precedents and held that the State of Georgia could retry the Petitioner on his criminal charges, notwithstanding prosecutorial misconduct by the Carroll County District Attorney’s Office that intentionally goaded the Petitioner, by and through his counsel of record, to request a mistrial. The Question Presented is: Did the Carroll County Superior Court and the Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia err when they held that the Carroll County District Attorney’s Office’s conduct did not rise to the level of intentionally goading the Petitioner into requesting a mistrial?