10 Basic Mistakes That Ruin Movies
8. That's... Not How Double Jeopardy Works - Double Jeopardy
1999's legal thriller Double Jeopardy revolves around Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd), a woman falsely convicted of her husband Nick's (Bruce Greenwood) murder, who in fact faked his death and framed her for it.
And so, Libby hatches a plan to get paroled as soon as possible and kill Nick for real, because per the apparent logic of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, a person cannot be convicted of the same crime twice.
The film supposes that this allows Libby to kill Nick with legal immunity - a hilarious misreading of the law which undermines the very premise of the movie.
The Double Jeopardy Clause prevents a person being convicted twice for the same specific event, but Libby killing Nick for real would be its own separate incident, and so she would still be entirely prosecutable.
It's a glaring, easily avoided factual inaccuracy which totally tanks the movie, though it's unclear whether the filmmakers simply failed to do their research or intentionally twisted legal precedent for the sake of a juicy crime thriller.