| Double Jeopardy | |
|---|---|
 Double Jeopardy DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Bruce Beresford |
| Produced by | Leonard Goldberg |
| Written by | David Weisberg Douglas Cook |
| Starring | Tommy Lee Jones Ashley Judd Bruce Greenwood |
| Music by | Normand Corbeil |
| Cinematography | Peter James |
| Editing by | Mark Warner |
| Distributed by | Paramount |
| Release date(s) | September 24, 1999 |
| Running time | 105 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $70 million |
| IMDb profile | |
Double Jeopardy is a film made in 1999 starring Tommy Lee Jones and Ashley Judd, about a woman who is framed for the murder of her husband.
Contents |
Plot
Elizabeth 'Libby' Parsons (Judd) holds the belief, subsequently proven correct, that her husband Nick Parsons (Bruce Greenwood) is still alive and staged his own death for the purpose of falsely convicting her of murder. She serves several years in prison and then emerges bent on finding her husband and son so as to take her revenge on the former and rescue the latter. The movie explores the ramifications of a misinterpretation of the legal doctrine of double jeopardy which is a constitutional right in the United States granted by the Fifth Amendment to the US constitution. A fellow prison inmate advises Libby she could kill her husband in the middle of Times Square and the police would be powerless to do anything about it because of double jeopardy, because she had already been convicted once for his murder and served time. Both Libby and Lehman (Jones) repeat this theory later in the movie in order to frighten Nick in the climactic confrontation scene.
Cast
- Tommy Lee Jones - Travis Lehman
- Ashley Judd - Elizabeth 'Libby' Parsons
- Bruce Greenwood - Nicholas Nick' Parsons
- Benjamin Weir - Matty Parsons age 4
- Jay Brazeau - Bobby Long
- John MacLaren - Rudy
- Ed Evanko - Warre
- Annabeth Gish - Angela 'Angie' Green
Legal Theory
Double jeopardy only applies to a single set of facts (a single incident). Just as it would be two separate offenses (and two separate permissible prosecutions) to steal from someone on two separate occasions, so it would be two separate offenses to murder someone twice [1].
External links
- Double Jeopardy at the Internet Movie Database
- Movie stills
- Straight Dope article on Double Jeopardy, including discussion of this film
