In the case of David Allen Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a retrial sentencing an individual to death did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment or constitute cruel and unusual punishment under Eighth Amendment. The defendant, David Allen Sattazahn, was initially tried for murder and other crimes in Pennsylvania state court where jury deadlocked on his sentence leading to imposition of life imprisonment by default under state law. When he appealed his conviction and won a new trial but was found guilty again, this time he was sentenced to death by another jury. He argued that this second sentence violated constitutional protections against double jeopardy as well as being cruel and unusual punishment because it increased severity from previous life term after successful appeal on unrelated issues with original trial process itself rather than any new evidence about crime's seriousness or his culpability coming out at retrial stage.

In the dissenting opinion for David Allen Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, Justice Ginsburg argued that a life sentence should be considered an acquittal of the death penalty and thus, under double jeopardy principles, a defendant cannot be resentenced to death in subsequent proceedings. She contended that when a jury is deadlocked on sentencing and as a result, the judge imposes life imprisonment by default - this should constitute an "acquittal" on capital punishment. Therefore, retrying such cases with potential for harsher sentences would violate protections against double jeopardy. Furthermore, she expressed concern about states manipulating procedures to avoid these protections and emphasized respect for finality in legal proceedings.