Supreme Court rules on gerrymandering, double jeopardy

WASHINGTON—Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions released Monday split the justices along strange lines in cases about an exception to the double jeopardy clause in the U.S. Constitution and gerrymandering of legislative districts in Virginia.

In Gamble v. United States, the court upheld the long-standing “dual-sovereignty” exception to the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment. The exception applies when different jurisdictions charge someone for the same crime. Terance Gamble, a felon, was charged for illegal firearm possession by the state of Alabama and the federal government. He claimed the two charges violated his constitutional protection from double jeopardy, or being prosecuted twice for the same crime. By a 7-2 decision, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Neil Gorsuch dissenting, the court found that the dual-sovereignty exception applied and both charges stood.

The odd couplings of justices continued in Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill. The court found that the Virginia House of Delegates by itself had no standing to challenge a court decision that struck down the district boundaries drawn for the state’s House of Delegates and Senate, saying they were drawn with racial bias. Ginsburg wrote that the House could not represent the state and that the court decision did not constitute a “discrete, cognizable injury.” The 5-4 majority included liberal justices Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan and conservatives Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.