The case of State of Missouri v. Clinch, No. 71869 (Mo. App. W.D., 2011) is a murder trial. Before a jury was sworn in, the State filed a pretrial motion to exclude evidence about the victim. The defendant wanted to argue that the victim’s prior bad acts made the victim a dangerous person that justified the defendant to kill the victim (a ‘defense of others’ claim). The trial judge denied the State’s motion and in response the State simply dismissed the murder charge and refiled it, effectively getting a new trial judge that did end up granting the State’s motion. The defendant appealed his eventual jury conviction, but the appeals court affirmed the trial court conviction stating the State had the power to dismiss and refile charges as long as jeopardy has not attached. In a jury trial, jeopardy attaches when the jury is sworn in; since the jury had not been sworn in yet when the State dismissed the murder charge, jeopardy had not yet attached, and thus the State refiling the murder charge was not a violation of the double jeopardy clause.