Johansen Prosecutors Appeal

kmitnick writes "Jon Johansen will be back in court, tried again in an appeals court, because Hollywood knows better than the Norwegian legal system." Norway's legal system is different than the U.S.; the government can appeal a loss in a criminal case.

Comments

Re:Double Jeopardy

[Anonymous Coward]

if the defendant thinks the court's decision is wrong, he/she can appeal...why shouldn't the prosecutors have the same possibility?
and btw, the maximum number of appeals in norway is 2 before the case reaches the supreme court (and the supreme court won't take most cases)

Double Jeopary in Norway

[NigelJohnstone]

Its not legal in Norway.

------------
1999-05-21 NOR-1999-L-53741
Act (No. 30 of 1999) to strengthen the position of human rights in Norwegian law (Human Rights Act).
Contains six sections whereby the following international human rights instruments are given force of national law to the extent that they are considered as binding on Norway: the European Council's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, its Protocol of November 1950, its Protocols Nos. 4 (securing certain other rights and freedoms), 6 (abolition of death penalty), and 7 (furthering certain human rights and freedoms);

http://natlex.ilo.org/Scripts/natlexcgi.exe?lang =E &doc=query&ctry=NOR&llx=02

-----------

Protocol 7 from November 1950 is here:

http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/EN/Treaties/ht ml /117.htm

Article 4 - Right not to be tried or punished twice

So they adopted it into Norwegian law as part of human rights legislation.
Needs a lawyer to check it out, but what they're doing isn't just unethical and a breach of human rights. ITS NOT LEGAL EVEN IN NORWAY.

Re:Double Jeopary in Norway

[JanneM]

They aren't. This is an appeal to a higher court, not a new trial. If it works as the Swedish court (and the legal systems are pretty close), it will be a reinterpretation of already established facts, with an eye to whether the relevant law was correctly interpreted. It is not "really" whether he is guilty or not, but a trial of whether the lower court did in fact do its job properly.

For those of you still screaming "double jeopardy", don't forget (again, I'm talking about Swedish, not norwegian court practice) that if the defendant appeals, the higher court can not increase the punishment from the lower court. Only if the prosecution appeals as well (which they need a law-technical reason to do) can the appeals court ever increase the punishment.

Summary / Clearing things up.

[zokum]

Fair use in Norway:
Basically, you can make private copies of anything as long as you do not distribute them in any way. One might call it backups.

Appeal system:
You can appeal a sentence, but each time this is done the next trial is by a higher instance in the justice system. If a higher instance refuses to take on the case, the old verdict is the one that counts. There are 3 levels + the Human Rights tribunal in Haag or so.
1. Herreds/Byrett (county/city court)
2. Lagmannsretten (laymen's court)
3. Høyesterett (Supreme court)

The supreme court, (translated from http://www.mossbyrett.of.no/info/i_straff.html) cannot retry whether the accused is guilty or not. It is only there for matters og priniciples, and has more or less been abolished as an instance for appeals. So basically, you can be retried for the same crime, but only a very limited amount of times, and by significantly different courts.

Re:Double Jeopardy Possible in US

[fishbowl]

"If you're accused of a crime and prosecuted under state law in the state you reside, then acquitted, you can be tried again for the same crime by the feds."

The doctrine at work is Dual Sovreignty. The State cannot try you twice for the same crime, another State cannot try you, but since the State and the Federal government both have sovreignty over you, then you are subject to separate prosecution by both governments. It was an open question but was settled by the Supreme Court in one of the first Federal prosecutions for liquor under prohibition, US v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377 (1922).

So you can thank the War on Some Drugs for it, but it goes back much further than most people seem to realize.

Re:They have no chance.

[fobef]

Here is how it works in Sweden, which I suppose has a similar system.

All trials begin at the lowest instance.

After that the second instance can choose to accept an appeal. It is always harder to get an appeal accepted when trying to sentence someone who was declared not guilt in a lower instance.

Then there is the highest instance, which doesn't accept many cases every year, but this case most likely WILL end up there, because it is a new crime, and this is the instance which details how new, untested laws should be interpreted. If they make a clear enough innocent verdict in this case, no further "not guilty" verdicts would make it to second instance next time a person is tried for a similar crime under this law.

And no slashdot post is complete without... IANAL...