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Should British Hacker Lauri Love Be Tried In America? (theguardian.com)
A 31-year-old autistic man in the U.K. is suspected of hacking U.S. government computer systems in 2013 -- and he has one final chance to appeal his extradition. An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian
Even if Love is guilty, however, there are important legal and moral questions about whether he should be extradited to the US -- a nation that has prosecuted hackers with unrivalled severity, and one where Love could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison... His remaining hope for mercy is a final appeal against extradition in the high court in November. Love's hope is for a full and fair trial in Britain.
Even if he is found guilty in a British court of the most serious crimes in the US government's indictment, his legal team estimate that he faces just a few months in prison. Failure means Love will be flown to a holding facility in New York, placed on suicide watch and probably forced to take antidepressants, prior to a trial. If he refuses to accept a plea deal and is convicted, he will face $9m (£6.8m) in fines and, experts estimate, a prison term of up to 99 years, a punishment illustrative of the US's aggressive sentencing against hackers under the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Naomi Colvin, from the human rights group the Courage Foundation, tells the Guardian that "Lauri's case is critically important in determining the reach of America's unusually harsh punitive sanctions for computer crimes."
Even if he is found guilty in a British court of the most serious crimes in the US government's indictment, his legal team estimate that he faces just a few months in prison. Failure means Love will be flown to a holding facility in New York, placed on suicide watch and probably forced to take antidepressants, prior to a trial. If he refuses to accept a plea deal and is convicted, he will face $9m (£6.8m) in fines and, experts estimate, a prison term of up to 99 years, a punishment illustrative of the US's aggressive sentencing against hackers under the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Naomi Colvin, from the human rights group the Courage Foundation, tells the Guardian that "Lauri's case is critically important in determining the reach of America's unusually harsh punitive sanctions for computer crimes."
Of course: he committed the crimes against US computers, the crime happened there, so he should be extradited if the extradition treaty between UK and US provides for this.
A politician war criminal like for example, german nazis, have committed their crimes basically all over Europe and Asia, never set foot into the countries they attacked, the extermination camps were not in the German Reich either but in occupied areas, etc.. In the Nuremberg trials they still were sentenced to the harshest sentenced possible for these kind of crimes, even when they never set foot at the place where the crime happened. So there really is a lot of legal precedent for this.
If the US laws are too harsh, then this is a different problem. The defendant can't decide where to get sentenced based on the most lenient laws he can choose from. This is not what "in dubio pro reo" means...
Answer: look in the extradition treaty.
If you don't like "America's unusually harsh punitive sanctions for computer crimes", get your government to renegotiate the treaty.
I just did jury service. We were instructed quite specifically that the state bringing a case against someone is not to be considered as any indication of guilt.
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We were instructed quite specifically that the state bringing a case against someone is not to be considered as any indication of guilt.
You have missed the point. Something like 97% of federal cases never even get to the courtroom.
Ref: Why U.S. Criminal Courts Are So Dependent on Plea Bargaining
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons