Opinion Board | Enough is enough

Three mistrials and you're out. At least, that's what should happen.

Two weeks ago, the third jury to consider murder charges against Penn student Irina Malinovskaya decided it could not reach a unanimous verdict, resulting in a third mistrial.

Delaware's Attorney General Office is still deciding whether or not to take the rare step of trying Malinovskaya for a fourth time.

Enough is enough.

Officials need to release Malinovskaya immediately.

Another trial would not only waste more resources, but would also be unfair to the defendant.Delaware has spent an enormous amount of money and human capital over the last three years trying to convict Malinovskaya, and has come up short, time and time again.

When all is said and done, full cost of another trial could reach well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But a fourth trial would also raise troubling ethical questions.

Common sense dictates that prosecutors shouldn't be allowed to try a person over and over again indefinitely until they manage to find a jury that buys their side of the story.

Meanwhile, Malinovskaya languishes in legal limbo, unable to either leave prison or begin serving her sentence.

Of course, the jury has moved closer to convicting Malinovskaya over each trial and we don't pretend to know whether the accused is guilty or innocent. But we do know that prosecutors have shown three times that they can't prove the Wharton student murdered her ex-lover's girlfriend beyond a reasonable doubt.

A fourth trial may be technically legal, but it would fundamentally violate the spirit of that essential principle on which our entire justice system rests.

Most prosecutors have one chance to prove a defendant guilty.

Delaware's prosecutors have had three.

It's time to move on.

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