State v. Danielson

KONENKAMP, Justice (on reassignment).

[¶ 1.] This case requires us to decide whether a defendant, acquitted of grand theft, may be prosecuted for perjury on his trial testimony if the issue in the pending perjury trial was raised in the former trial. In dismissing the perjury charge on double jeopardy grounds, the circuit court reasoned that defendant’s truthfulness on whether he fixed a 1950 Studebaker had been litigated as an essential issue in the former case. But the question is whether the jury verdict in the former case necessarily decided the issue to be determined in the perjury trial.…