It was decided in "Fong Foo v. United States", 369 U.S. 141 (1962) that a judgment of acquittal by a jury cannot be appealed by the prosecution. In "United States v. Jenkins", 420 U.S. 358 (1975), this was held applicable to bench trials. In "Arizona v. Rumsey", 467 U.S. 203 (1984), it was ruled that in a bench trial, when a judge was holding a separate hearing after the jury trial, to decide if the defendant should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment, the judge decided that the circumstances of the case did not permit death to be imposed. On appeal the judge's ruling was found to be erroneous. However, even though the decision to impose a life sentence instead of death was based on an erroneous interpretation of the law by the judge, the finding of life imprisonment in the original case constituted an acquittal of the death penalty and thus death could not be imposed upon a subsequent trial. Even though the acquittal of the death penalty was erroneous in that case, the acquittal must stand.