In America, it is illegal to prosecute a person for the same crime, no matter what the circumstances. It is a law intended to protect the innocent from unfair harassment and persecution.

But sometimes it protects the guilty as well.

Guilty As Sin

The circumstantial evidence against southern businessman Mel Ignatow was solid -- effectively damning him for the savage 1988 sex torture/slaying of his former girlfriend, Brenda Schaefer. There was motive, unimpeachable forensic evidence . . . even testimony from an eyewitness who took photographs of the gruesome, horrific crime. But in a Kentucky courtroom, frustration, ignorance, incompetence and fate pulled a supposedly open-and-shut case in shocking, unexpected directions -- and tied the concept of American justice into knots that might never be undone.