The writ of certiorari brought before the Mayflower Supreme Court presents these questions:

  1. Did the trial court [make a mistake] in dismissing the case with prejudice?
  2. Did the trial court [make a mistake] in holding that the prosecution’s case was barred by a previous dismissal with prejudice?

PETITIONER ARGUMENTS
Currently, District Attorney and Petitioner for the case Andysofun argues that based on a typo his office made on the first attempted prosecution of Arvantise, they were seperate cases. In the first case, the criminal information alleges that the events took place on the 25th, whereas the medal clip provided on the affidavit shows the 23rd; however, this mistake wasn’t noticed, and the judge of the case dismissed based on the statute of limitations being exceeded. On the most recent prosecution of Arvantise, he argues that this typo made these 2 separate crimes.

The Non-profit Mayflower Justice Initiative has filed a Amicus Brief (Friend of the Court) siding with the petitioner. They sided with the petitions as well as stating as this case can set a dangerous standard. They argued that if a case is dismissed with prejudice, then another separate case with the same charges dismissed with prejudice, then it’s essentially a “get out of jail free cards.”

DEFENDANT ARGUMENTS
Clarke & Associates, the counsel for the respondent Arvantise, in their brief to the supreme court, argues that:

  1. The 2 trials are the same
  2. The specifics of the date are not relevant
  3. The District court couldn’t proceed a case previously dismissed with prejudice
    The first argument is that in both documents, the wording is exactly the same except for the date. He argues that the affidavits for probable cause should be looked at, which were exactly identical and occurred on the 23rd. The typo has been admitted by the District Attorney during a hearing of the second case: “I made a [severe and continuous lapse in my judgement] when setting the date… I typo’d the date on the criminal information”

They also argue that the dates are, in fact, not relevant. This is on a foundation that essentially the crimes are the same as admitted by the District Attorney

Their third and final argument is that since this case has been dismissed with prejudice before, the judge had no other choice than to also dismiss the case.

IMPORTANT LINKS 🔗

Note – A case dismissed with prejudice essentially means the Defendant is not guilty and can’t be tried again in court