Double Jeopardy (1999) - 12 corrections

Directed by Bruce Beresford, starring Ashley Judd, Bruce Campbell, Bruce Greenwood, Tommy Lee Jones (add more)

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

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Entry When Libby had to shoot her way out of the coffin, the shot would have been so loud that her hearing would have been poor for days, yet she was able to listen to the conversation in the room at the end from behind a heavy closed door. [Two gunshots would not impair her hearing for days. I was at a shooting range recently and my friend fired several rounds from a loud H&K .45 in a confined, indoor space while I had my ear protection off. In less than 30 minutes my hearing had returned to normal. ]
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Entry The premise for the story is that Ashley Judd's husband fakes his death, frames her for it so she's sent to jail and gives her friend, the husband's secret lover, the money from his life insurance to take care of her son so the husband gets the son, the lover and the money. The problem? What kind of insurance company would pay out a life insurance policy when it's sole beneficiary has been convicted of murdering the policy holder to claim the money? Isn't that fairly concrete grounds to refuse the money and shouldn't the husband know this? [The policy may also have listed his son as a beneficiary in the case of certain events - the death of the surviving parent, or as happens here, a criminal conviction. Since the son is a minor, control of the money would most likely be shifted to a legal guardian, the wife's friend.]
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Entry When Libby says that she wants to buy a car, she asks the sales clerk to check her credit history as her friend Angela to see if she has enough credit. The credit guy says that the name is wrong, but nothing else. In the next scene we find out that Angela died four years ago. Wouldn't it show up on the computer that Angela is dead? [Not necessarily. Unless the death was reported to all credit bureaus, it is possible to still use the credit of someone deceased. Someone stole my grandmothers purse before she died and stole her identity getting credit cards and all types of things in her name. We were totally unaware of this until we were contacted about various unpaid bills about a year and a half later. We then had to prove that my grandmother was dead to all three major credit bureaus because if a creditor uses TransUnion, for instance, and we only contacted Experian, there is no way the death notice would get to the creditor.]
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Entry There's another problem with the can't-be-tried-twice-for-the-same-murder aspect: every crime that is prosecuted contains within it a specific description of where and when it occurred - i.e., she killed him at 1234 Anywhere Ave., at 9:30 p.m. or whatever. If she then kills him again somewhere else later on, it's a different crime and can be prosecuted as such. If I shoplift from Wal-Mart tomorrow, get caught and serve jail time for it, that doesn't mean I can go back anytime thereafter and shoplift some more because of the double jeopardy clause. [This is already kind of covered in the corrections section, but anyway. You cannot be tried for killing the same person twice at different times. I'm convicted of killing John Doe in May 2004, but he isn't actually dead. They can't try me for killing him in May 2005, which I did. The first trial would be voided since the "victim" wasn't dead, then I would be tried. The analogy is all wrong. I shoplift from Wal-Mart today and the store/franchise doesn't disappear from the face of the Earth. Each time I shoplift from Wal-Mart, it is a new crime. Each time I kill a person, it is a new crime.]
Corrected by Rlvlk Time
Entry With all the blood on the deck of the boat, I would have thought a good lawyer would have had it analysed, found it not to be her husbands, and therefore no case to answer. [Who said it wasn't his (at least part of it)? He thought this whole faked murder thing out pretty thoroughly after all. ]
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Entry The husband knows that his wife is in jail, knows she knows he faked his death, and must have suspected she will try to trace him when she is released. There is no hint that he kept an eye on her, or that he took any precautions in case she turned up, as she did. [To be fair, he probably was not informed that she was out on parole, so he would think she's still in jail. Murder tends to get a pretty hefty sentence...]
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Entry In the scene where Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones are sitting in Tommy's car on the ferry, Tommy gets out of the car and takes his car keys with him. He then handcuffs Ashley to the car. Later, when Ashley is trying to escape, there is a shot of the keys hanging from the ignition. Ashley then uses them to start the car and eventually escape. [In this scene you never actually see Tommy Lee Jones take his car keys with him. You just assume so. But if you watch carefully he reaches into his right jacket pocket and takes out a single key that he uses to unlock and then lock the handcuffs.]
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Entry In the end of the movie, Tommy Lee Jones is shot in the back on his upper right shoulder, yet when he is on the stretcher, he has been shot in his upper left shoulder. [I just watched the movie on DVD and played the scene over twice. Tommy Lee Jones was shot in the left shoulder.]
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Entry The entire premise of the movie is that the wife can't be convicted a second time for killing her husband, because she was already convicted for his murder when he actually faked it. Each state is an independent sovereign, and as such could prosecute the wife for murder even if another state had already prosecuted for the same crime. The federal government is also an independent sovereignty and could prosecute as well. [All of this is true, but the movie's premise is legally flawed on an even more fundamental level. The Double Jeopardy clause prevents the state from prosecuting a second time for the same alleged offense, such that the second prosecution would be based on the exact same underlying facts and circumstances as the first one. So, the DJ clause would not prevent a second prosecution for murder of the same individual, but at a different point in time, any more than it would prevent a second prosecution, for example, of a thief who had stood trial five years ago for a previous robbery.]
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Entry Remember Ashley Judd stole Tommy Lee Jones' gun from previous scenes? How did she get pass the airport security with the gun? (when flying to New Orleans) [She checked it in her luggage. It is permitted to carry firearms on a plane as long as they are below the airplane and unloaded and they are declared.]
Corrected by shortdanzr Time
Entry Miss Judd was traveling between cities on an airplane. How could she carry a gun with her? [I work for a major airline and guns can be carried as long as they are checked luggage and are loaded in the cargo pit of the aircraft.]
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Entry In the scene where Libby is knocked out in the cemetary, the bad guy puts her in a room with a coffin, yet in the next scene she wakes up in the coffin. [The scene cuts with the husband dragging Ashley Judd into the tomb, and closing the door behind him (presumably to ensure that he will not be seen). It can be assumed that he subsequently put her into the coffin, despite the fact that it is not shown on camera.]
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