Supreme Court approves retrial on lesser related offense

In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Ming Chin, the Supreme Court today holds that a defendant can be retried on the lesser related offense of arson of property despite a finding of a lack of evidence to support his conviction for arson of an inhabited structure.  In People v. Goolsby, the court reverses the Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division Two, which had divided 2-1 on the issue whether the defendant could be retried.  The eight-page opinion finds only no statutory bar to a retrial; it leaves to the Court of Appeal in the first instance to determine whether double-jeopardy considerations might lead to a different result.  It also includes a footnote puzzling over the way the prosecution amended its charging document, saying that “[t]he problem in this case would not have arisen under the original information.”