Barton v. Commonwealth

A single justice of this court has reported the question whether the Commonwealth is barred by the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution from retrying Edward R. Barton, Jr. (hereinafter the defendant), on two felony indictments after his initial trial terminated in a mistrial. We conclude that there was no “manifest necessity” for the declaration of a mistrial and, *689as a consequence, that the defendant’s reprosecution is barred.

The defendant and one Joshua Nixon were put to trial on November 18, 1980, before a fourteen person jury in the Superior Court on…