The Supreme Court declined to examine a case involving the neighbor who assaulted Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
Last week, the high court declined an appeal from Rene Boucher, who tackled Paul in 2017 and pleaded guilty to a felony count of assaulting a member of Congress resulting in personal injury in 2018, after the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals determined his original sentence was too lenient for the crime.
The U.S. District Court in Bowling Green initially sentenced Boucher, who had already served his time and paid his fine, to 30 days in prison and a $10,000 fine for assaulting the Kentucky senator. However, federal prosecutors sought a harsher prison sentence of up to 21 months, detailing how Paul suffered multiple cases of pneumonia and underwent surgery to have part of his damaged lung removed.
Boucher’s attorneys petitioned the court for a writ of certiorari, or review of the case, claiming that additional sentencing would constitute a violation of Fifth Amendment “double jeopardy” protections, which prohibit the government from attempting to charge citizens of the same crime multiple times.
Lawyers in the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office asserted that the high court could not examine a case of “double jeopardy” until Boucher was sentenced a second time.
“I’ve been researching a motion I intend to file later in the week or the first part of next week to raise the double jeopardy issue to the trial judge,” said Boucher’s attorney Matt Baker of the case going forward. “We continue to believe that because Dr. Boucher has completely served a perfectly legal sentence that jeopardy attaches and that the case ought to be dismissed at this time.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling returns the case to the district court that imposed the original sentence.
