Bartkus v. Illinois.
The Court held that coordination between federal and state officials did not implicate double jeopardy, and that a defendant acquitted of a federal crime could be convicted of a state crime on the same evidence without violating due process.· AI-written
355 U.S. 281 · No. 39 · 1957 term · Warren Court
Decided Jan 6, 1958 · argued Nov 19, 1957
The voteEach side
4–44 on each side
Equally divided: the decision below stands
Affirmed. Bartkus lost.
What this ruling means
Affirmed by an equally divided Court: with the justices split evenly, the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court stands, but the Court wrote no opinion and the ruling sets no precedent for other cases.
Bartkus was the petitioner, the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the case. “Lost” means the Court did not give that side the result it asked for.
From the Supreme Court Database. A justice who agreed with the result but not the reasoning counts in the majority.
Summary
The opening of the case’s Wikipedia article: what the case was about and what the Court held.
Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121 (1959), is a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision held that coordination of federal officials with state officials did not implicate the double jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It also held that a defendant may be acquitted of a federal crime and convicted of a state crime, even if those crimes share the same evidence, without violating the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The case established the dual sovereign exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause, enabling state and federal prosecutions for substantially similar events.
Data notes
The text is Wikipedia’s (CC BY-SA 4.0), matched to the case by its citation, docket number or name and year, and is not checked against the opinion. The site keeps the article’s opening section, ending on its last full sentence. The one-sentence summary under the title is the Decisions list’s: Wikipedia’s own ruling sentence, or, tagged “AI-written”, one Claude wrote from this opening.
How the justices voted
The Court split evenly, 4–4, which leaves the lower court’s decision in place without an opinion. Each justice who took part is placed by their Martin–Quinn ideology score for the 1957 term.
Did not take part: William Brennan.
Data notes
Each justice’s vote and what they wrote are from the justice-centered file of the Supreme Court Database. “Wrote a concurrence” means the justice sided with the majority and wrote separately; a justice who dissented in part is counted on the side they took overall. A justice who wrote nothing is listed as joining their side.
Positions are each justice’s Martin–Quinn score for the case’s term, the same scores as the Ideology page: negative is more liberal, positive more conservative. A score sums up a justice’s votes across the whole term, so it says where they usually sit, not why they voted as they did here. The median line is the Court’s median justice that term.
The parties
Who brought the case to the Court, who answered it, and how it got there.
- Petitioner
- BartkusPerson accused, indicted, or suspected of crime
- Respondent
- Illinois.State (Illinois)
- Reached the Court by
- Certiorari (the Court chose to hear it)
Data notes
The names are the two sides of the case’s title. The description under each is the Supreme Court Database’s category for that party, in its own wording. The petitioner is the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the decision below. “Why it was taken” appears only when the majority opinion says lower courts disagreed or were unsure about the question; reasons that would fit any case (“to resolve the question presented”, “an important question”) are left out.
The law at issue
The law the Court was asked to apply, and the kind of power it used to decide.
- Decided by
- Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction
Data notes
The Supreme Court Database codes the main constitutional provision, statute or court rule each case turned on, and the basis of the decision: judicial review of a federal or state law, interpreting a statute, supervising the lower courts, and so on. A case can rest on more than one. “Overruled” counts only where the majority opinion says so.
Timeline
What happened at the Court and how the case got there, newest first.
- Jan 6, 1958DecidedDecided · Decided 4–4: affirmed. Bartkus lost.
- Nov 19, 1957ArguedArgued · Oral argument before the Court.
- Not datedTaken upTaken up · The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case (certiorari).
- Not datedCourt belowCourt below · Decided by the Illinois Supreme Court.
- Not datedBeganBegan · The case began in the Illinois trial court.
Data notes
From the Supreme Court Database: the court the case began in, the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed and what that court did, how the case came to the Court, and the dates of argument and decision. The database does not date the steps in the lower courts. Court names are the database’s.
Official record
Read the full opinion on Justia, the argument audio on Oyez and Wikipedia. Case data from the Supreme Court Database, Version 2026 Release 01, through the 2025 term.