Gamble v. United States, No. 17-646, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case about the separate sovereignty exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allows both federal and state prosecution of the same crime as the governments are "separate sovereigns". Terance Martez Gamble was prosecuted under both state and then federal laws for possessing a gun while being a felon. His argument that doing so was double jeopardy was found unpersuasive due to the exception. In June 2019, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court decision 7–2, with the majority opinion stating that there was not sufficient cause for overturning the dual sovereignty doctrine. Legal background The separate sovereigns doctrine holds that because the federal and state government are "separate sovereigns", the Double Jeopardy Clause does not apply to prosecution of the same crime under both federal and state laws. The doctrine is more than 150 years old. States can (and some do) have "economy of prosecution" policies, which make it a policy to not concurrently expend resources to prosecute offenses against their State laws where an alleged perpetrator is arrested and being tried for equal or greater offenses, similar or identical to alleged offenses against the laws of the prosecution's State. In those States, the District or States' Attorneys will only move to prosecute an alleged perpetrator should (1) the initial prosecution fail to convict, or (2) the case is abandoned before a verdict. In all such instances, the separate Sovereigns doctrine retains the authority to prosecute at the discretion of the State, sister State, or Federal government. In the 1959 cases of Abbate v. United States and Bartkus v. Illinois, the Supreme Court affirmed the doctrine. The doctrine has been criticized by many scholars as having no basis in the text of the clause. Case background In November 2015, Terance Martez Gamble was pulled over in Mobile, Alabama for a damaged headlight. After a search of the vehicle, a handgun was found which was illegal under both Alabama state and federal laws because he was a felon. He was convicted under Alabama state law and given a one-year sentence. He was also prosecuted under federal laws, and after the district court concluded that double jeopardy did not apply in this case, he pled guilty and received a 46-month sentence. Gamble appealed to the 11th Circuit