Double Jeopardy vs. Dual Sovereignty Doctrine

The idea of the Double Jeopardy Clause is simple: Government only gets one chance to convict you of a crime. In the United States, we have multiple governments. We have the federal government, one for each of the fifty states, and I don’t know how many county and city governments. Does the Fifth Amendment apply to all of these governments? Yes.

There is nothing in the language of the Fifth Amendment to limit it to just one government. So what happens when a state tries someone, yet doesn’t get a conviction? Is it possible to get another chance once “jeopardy has attached,” as the legal eagles would say?

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