In the case of Alex Blueford v. Arkansas, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a defendant's constitutional protection against double jeopardy was not violated when he was retried after a jury failed to reach a verdict in his first trial. The petitioner, Alex Blueford, had been charged with capital murder and lesser included offenses in Arkansas state court. During deliberations at his initial trial, the jury reported that it had voted unanimously against guilt on charges of capital murder and first-degree murder but could not agree on manslaughter or negligent homicide charges leading to mistrial declaration by judge due to deadlock over lesser charges. When prosecutors sought retrial for all four crimes including those already acquitted by jurors informally during their deliberation process; Blueford appealed arguing this would violate Double Jeopardy Clause which prohibits trying someone twice for same offense after acquittal or conviction has occurred once before. The Supreme Court disagreed with him stating informal vote doesn't constitute formal acquittal thus allowing re-prosecution without violating constitutional rights under Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause as long as no official judgement is recorded regarding specific charge(s).

In the dissenting opinion for Alex Blueford v. Arkansas, Justice Sotomayor argued that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment should have prevented Arkansas from retrying Blueford on capital and first-degree murder charges after his initial trial ended in a hung jury. The majority held that because there was no formal acquittal recorded, double jeopardy did not apply. However, Sotomayor contended that when jurors reported they had voted unanimously against these charges before deadlocking on manslaughter charge, it constituted an "implicit acquittal." She believed this implicit decision by the jury should be respected and protected under double jeopardy clause as much as a formal verdict would be. Therefore, she disagreed with retrial of all charges including those implicitly acquitted off in previous trial.