United States v. Dunn

Case Overview

Sean Dunn threw a sandwich at a federal officer in Washington, D.C., and a jury acquitted him even though the evidence that he did it was strong. Bryan uses the case as a teaching tool on the Fifth Amendment and what the jury system actually is: a constitutional check that lets ordinary people step in at the last moment and say the government is using its criminal authority in a way they won't endorse. The double jeopardy clause makes that decision final. Once a jury says not guilty, the government cannot retry the case, which means the people's verdict on whether to ratify the government's exercise of power is unreviewable. The Dunn acquittal lands as a civics lesson: the machinery of the Constitution protecting a decision that most people would consider wrong on the facts, because the machinery is the point.