SCOTUS confirms that “an acquittal is an acquittal” in crazy Georgia case

The Supreme Court this morning handed down two unanimous opinions, one of which came in the criminal case of McElrath v. Georgia, No. 22-721 (S. Ct. Feb 21, 2024) (available here).  Justice Jackson authored the ten-page opinion for the Court, which starts this way:

Under Georgia law, a jury’s verdict in a criminal case can be set aside if it is “repugnant” — meaning that it involves “affirmative findings by the jury that are not legally and logically possible of existing simultaneously.” 308 Ga. 104, 111, 839 S. E. 2d 573, 579 (2020).  In this case, a jury found that petitioner Damian McElrath was “not guilty by reason of insanity” with respect to a malice-murder count, but was “guilty but mentally ill” regarding two other counts — felony murder and aggravated assault — all of which pertained to the same underlying homicide.  Invoking the repugnancy doctrine, Georgia courts nullified both the “not guilty” and “guilty” verdicts, and authorized McElrath’s retrial.

McElrath now maintains that the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause prevents the State from retrying him for the crime that had resulted in the “not guilty by reason of insanity” finding.  Under the circumstances presented here, we agree.  The jury’s verdict constituted an acquittal for double jeopardy purposes, and an acquittal is an acquittal notwithstanding its apparent inconsistency with other verdicts that the jury may have rendered.  

Justice Alito added a two-paragraph concurrence, which starts this way:

I join the opinion of the Court but write to clarify my understanding of what we have held. In this case, there was indisputably an acquittal on the malice-murder charge. The jury returned a not-guilty verdict on that count, the trial judge entered a judgment of acquittal on that count, and petitioner appealed that part of the judgment. Because the Constitution does not permit appellate review of an acquittal, the State Supreme Court’s decision must be reversed. As I understand it, our holding extends no further