In the case of Arizona v. Rumsey, 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a retrial for sentencing in a capital murder case did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The defendant, John Adam Rumsey was convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery but during his initial trial's penalty phase, he was erroneously acquitted by an Arizona judge who misunderstood state law regarding mitigating circumstances in death penalty cases. The State appealed this decision to the Arizona Supreme Court which ordered a new sentencing hearing where Rumsey received a death sentence instead. This led to another appeal claiming double jeopardy - being tried twice for same offense - which reached US Supreme Court eventually. The court held that since there had been no acquittal on factual grounds at first instance (the original error was based on misinterpretation of law), it didn't constitute double jeopardy when corrected by higher courts and thus allowed re-sentencing without violating constitutional rights.

In the dissenting opinion for Arizona v. Rumsey, Justice Blackmun argued that the majority's decision was a departure from established precedent regarding double jeopardy. He contended that the trial judge's error in applying state law did not constitute an acquittal and thus should not have triggered protections against double jeopardy. The justice believed this ruling would lead to unnecessary confusion in future cases involving judicial errors at sentencing trials, as it blurred the line between true acquittals and mere legal mistakes made by judges during proceedings. Furthermore, he expressed concern over how this decision might impact capital punishment jurisprudence by potentially allowing defendants to avoid death sentences through procedural technicalities rather than substantive evaluations of their guilt or innocence.