Nichols v. Johnson

How later courts describe this case

• holding that a defendant’s guilty plea does not preclude prosecution of a co-defendant when it could not be determined whose gun caused the fatal wound
• Finding that where the facts support the conclusion that either defendant could have fired the fatal shot, the prosecutor did not violate due process by arguing at separate trials that the man on trial was the one responsible for the fatal shot.
• where verdict in first trial did not presuppose determination that codefendant fired fatal shot, government not precluded from arguing that defendant fired fatal shot