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."

Comments

Of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

No-one should ever be extradited to some shithole they never set foot in. If he broke Britsh law, let him be tried in the UK by an applicable court. If the Americans claim he violated US law, give them a lecture about jurisdiction and be done with it.

Re:Of course not

[Hognoxious]

The UK government has been handing people over with no questions asked for as long as I can remember, whereas it's all but impossible the other way round because of the constitution and how judges interpret it.

Sod the merits of the individual case, he shouldn't be extradited unless and until it works both ways.

Re:Of course not

[Trickster Paean]

It is not all but impossible. In the last extradition review, conducted by a panel headed by Sir Scott Baker, they found the following:
That the US made 130 extradition requests to the UK.
That the UK refused 10 of those requests.
That the UK submitted 54 extradition requests to the US.
The US refused none of them.
Of the 120 requests accepted by the UK, 77 were extradited. The rest were either pending in the UK legal system, the person voluntarily went to the US, or the case became moot for other reasons.
Of the 54 requests accepted by the US, 38 were extradited. The rest either voluntarily went to the UK or the case became moot for other reasons.

You'll note that none of the UK extradition requests were pending the US legal system. If the standards in the treaty are met, the U.S. Constitution offers little in the way to prevent extradition to the UK. Partly that is because as a treaty, it is part of the Supreme Law of the Land (Article 6, Clause 2), and partly because the US Constitution poses almost no barrier to extradition.

The US extradites its citizens quite often and quite readily. Some countries refuse to extradite their citizens, even if there is a valid extradition treaty (see France and Brazil). So long as there is a valid extradition treaty, and the crime charged satisfies the dual criminality component of those treaties, the US has and will extradite its citizens.

Yes

[klingens]

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...

extradition treaty

[doctorvo]

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."

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.

No, not subject to US law

[Roger W Moore]

He did not commit any crime while in the US jurisdiction so no. He was in the UK at the time and subject to UK law so he should only be tried in the UK. To do otherwise means that the UK has lost all sovereignty because then while in the UK you don't just have to follow UK law but also US law over which the UK has no control.

Extradition is intended to prevent someone committing a crime while in a country's jurisdiction and then running away to a foreign country to escape answering for it. If the US does not think that UK law is strict enough to prevent hacking attacks like this the solution is to block all internet connections from the UK not try to enforce US law on someone who has probably never even visited the US.

Re:No, not subject to US law

[Solandri]

Extradition is intended to prevent someone committing a crime while in a country's jurisdiction and then running away to a foreign country to escape answering for it.

That's exactly what happened here, except the order of the crime and fleeing are reversed. He committed the crimes remotely - he "fled" first, then (allegedly) committed the crimes.

There's a concept in common law states called standing. The crime was (remotely) committed in the U.S. The injured party is in the U.S. The (purported) criminal is in the UK. The injured party has no standing (right to sue) in the UK. Consequently, the correct venue to hold the trial is in the U.S. This is exactly the type of situation extradition treaties were set up to address.

If what he did was legal in the UK, then it'd be a different story. And I'd completely understand if the UK refused to extradite for that reason. Likewise if the UK felt there was insufficient evidence against him, then I'd understand if they denied the extradition request (c.f. New Zealand and Kim Dotcom). But if he'd be subject to trial in the UK if he had committed these acts against a UK citizen or UK government, then there's really no reason not to honor the U.S.' extradition request. I suppose the UK could grant the U.S. government standing and the broad right to sue UK citizens in UK courts for violating UK law outside the UK against U.S. citizens and interests. But I think UK citizens would prefer extradition to that.

Re:The USA does not have a legal system

[ChrisMaple]

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.

Re:The USA does not have a legal system

[petes_PoV]

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