Followup on the Courts

In class, we discussed whether the prohibition of double jeopardy forbids federal and state authorities from prosecuting the same crime.  This essay in FindLaw explains that it does not:

In a federal system, different units of government may have different interests to serve in the definition of crimes and the enforcement of their laws, and where the different units have overlapping jurisdictions a person may engage in conduct that will violate the laws of more than one unit. 50 Although the Court had long accepted in dictum the principle that prosecution by two governments of the same defendant for the same conduct would not constitute double jeopardy, 51 it was not until United States v. Lanza 52 that the conviction in federal court of a person previously convicted in a state court for performing the same acts was sustained. ''We have here two sovereignties, deriving power from different sources, capable of dealing with the same subject-matter within the same territory . . . Each government in determining what shall be an offense against its peace and dignity is exercising its own sovereignty, not that of the other.'' 53 

Look here for more information about federal prisons.