In Ashe v. Swenson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of petitioner Robert Lee Ashe, establishing an important precedent for the interpretation of the Double Jeopardy Clause in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The case arose from a poker game robbery where six men were robbed and Ashe was accused of robbing one man but acquitted due to lack of evidence. He was later charged with robbing another player during that same event and found guilty despite his plea invoking double jeopardy protection against being tried twice for essentially identical charges stemming from a single crime scene incident. The Supreme Court overturned this conviction on appeal, ruling that once acquitted, a defendant could not be retried for essentially identical offenses even if they involved different victims within a single criminal episode or transaction.

In the dissenting opinion for Ashe v. Swenson, Justice Stewart disagreed with the majority's application of collateral estoppel in criminal cases. He argued that this principle should not be applied to bar a second prosecution when there is no indication that the first jury had necessarily decided an issue of ultimate fact in favor of the defendant. In his view, it was unclear whether or not the first jury had acquitted Ashe based on reasonable doubt about his identity as one of robbers or due to insufficient evidence proving he robbed specifically Mr. Roberts (the victim in question during second trial). Therefore, he believed that applying collateral estoppel under these circumstances violated traditional rules and principles governing double jeopardy clause interpretation and could lead to confusion and inconsistency in future cases.