Unfit to plead before a US court? You may face 'indefinite detention' Accused Brit hacker Lauri Love may be held in indefinite detention in an American prison if US courts find him unfit to enter a plea, the High Court in London was told this afternoon. Love is accused by American prosecutors of hacking into the servers of a variety of US government agencies, including systems used by the US …
It would appear that the judges have some common sense and seem to be asking some hard questions for the CPS to answer.
Now I know Love and have done for a few years.
I will not comment on whether his mental health or emotional well being were part of the reason he did what he did.
But I can assure you that in my mind being held indefinitely awaiting trial would almost certainly lead to his suicide.
The the whole argument is that as it was a crime in the UK then he can be tried in the UK.
There is no need to transfer him to the USA if the evidence can be transported here and as the evidence is computer based it can be.
The mental health argument is an extra which in all honesty it would be giving him a death sentence either
a) through suicidal actions
b) through a life time of jail
I dunno about you but if I was looking @ 99 years in jail compared to maybe 6-10 in the UK where I commutes the crime, where the jurisdiction is then I know what I would prefer
The argument against extradition is that Love is mentally unstable now, and will get substantially worse if extradited. If you have doubts about the likelihood of that, I suggest you reference some of the articles at popehat.com for examples of how U.S. prosecutors can frequently be sadistic a**holes. Also look up Aaron Swartz.
As I understand it there was very little harm done to anyone (please correct me I haven't followed the case in detail). No-one has died. No-one has lost their livelihood. Just the americans had to spend a load of money tightening their security when they realized how crap it was. Happy to be corrected.
The offenses were committed in the UK - just get it done here. The US penalties would class as cruel and unusual punishment in my mind.
was demonstrating incompetence of the system admins at the various USA establishments that he cracked. Real damage in terms of stolen data, etc, does not figure. This is exactly why the USA wanted Gary McKinnon. It is an attempt at revenge rather than justice; the people that they should be looking at (I do not say prosecute) are the sysadmins & their bosses.
The real risk is that he faces is a long sentence in a prison there, the USA seems to lock more people up & for longer than most other countries. They do not regard prison as one way of rehabilitation.
There is little public interest in prosecuting him in the USA rather than the UK.
Another issue is the asymmetrical USA/UK extradition arrangements: the USA can grab people from the UK much, much more easily than the UK get people from the USA.
"The US penalties would class as cruel and unusual punishment in my mind."
Yes, it seems that imprisonment in the UK, while a punishment, is also geared towards rehabilitation whereas imprisonment in the US, while also a punishment, seems to be primarily a means of revenge.
While I do get concerned in some cases where a UK convict is sentenced for multiple crimes to be served concurrently and so can be out relatively quickly, Loves case is not the sort where multiple long sentences to be served consecutively, as the US often does, leading to 99 year sentences, or multiple consecutive life sentences for what is a relatively minor crime is just bloody stupid.
The US shysters love to load up the charges with some fairly trivial and idiotic charges so they can get a sham conviction or plea deal on something. Various US law blogs have severely criticized the practice and some have called it unethical.
An infamous example predating Aaron Schwartz is Martha Stewart. The ferals tried to nail her for insider trading of a stock. However, she was not an insider and was only acting on a tip from her broker that a real insider was selling his stock. What the ferals were able to get her on was the trivial charge of making a 'false statement' to feral bureau of incompetence.
Read 'Three Felonies a Day' to see how bad the feral criminal injustice system is.
Their attitude seems to be that, if they once decide to get you, you are going down for a long time. Once in a hundred they might go the long route, complete with charges, trial and sentence; mostly it's done through plea bargains.
And now we see that they manage to get the same result even if a potential defendant is unfit to plead.
Or if, like Assange, he takes diplomatic refuge, we get American leaders like Hillary Clinton asking why "we can't just drone him?"
"An infamous example predating Aaron Schwartz is Martha Stewart."I remember the case well a_yank_lurker. IIRC her mistake was to co-operate with the FBI in good faith so the take-home message from the case was do NOT under any circumstances volunteer information to the FBI or police. The offence was hardly trivial BTW. She was jailed for it.
"supposed to halt extraditions from the UK if the charges can be answered in a British court."
Anyone fancy getting together to lay an information before a magistrate and start a UK private prosecution?
As the CPS have shown many times, we don't have to actually enter any evidence, and they we get an acquittal. And it's be clearly wrong for him to be tried again for the same offense.
Anyone fancy getting together to lay an information before a magistrate and start a UK private prosecution?
You can't. You don't have standing (you're not a victim) and even if you were, the CPS could (and would) take over the case and discontinue it (double jeopardy only applies after a verdict).
Fairly sure that the bit about standing is wrong, after all the RSPCA bring private prosecutions all the time, as identified by the CPS themselves http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/private_prosecutions/
Also on that page are the circumstances under which the CPS should take over a prosecution, and none would apply here. Although then you're in the murky world of government, so anything could happen. You'd hope the CPS finding a public interest in not prosecuting would influence a human rights decision on extradition though.
Yes. And the habit of the RSPCA in bringing private prosecutions is currently being knocked on the head as an overreach.
Apparently it used to be ok to aggressive about private prosecutions if it was for fluffy animals. Now not so much.
Even the RSPCA have admitted they got overly aggressive.
PS support the aims of the RSPCA but not necessarily the way they decided to execute them.
Why would you want an acquittal? What we want is a fair trial in a fair location. If the guy in question has broken the law then he should stand trial and be punished if found guilty. If he is unable to be sent to the US for trial, then he should be tried in the UK and if found guilty sent to prison in the UK.
From reading these articles, that is the crux of the matter. He doesn't want to go to the US because their prisons are a bit harsh, his mental health may indeed make it so that if he was sent to the US he would kill himself in which case he should most certainly be tried here, but wanting to acquit him?
There are plenty of people with the same mental health issues he has, and they don't run around breaking the law, if he is capable of distinguishing right from wrong and is able to make a choice between doing right and wrong, then he should answer for his crimes.
The funny thing is that is all he wants a fair trial by a jury of his peers.
Now we all know that that won't happen in the USA as has been mentioned before their whole system us built on plea bargains and not actual factual prosecutions.
He hasn't said he was innocent or guilty just that he should be tried at home
From reading these articles, that is the crux of the matter.
The crux of the matter is the other way round: The USA DONT want the trial to be held outside of the US because it would mean the US would have to finally accept the legitimacy of legal systems in the rest of the world and that there are times US law is subservient - hence why the attempt to narrowly define broad concepts in the treaty and the lies about how difficult it would be to get evidence to a UK court. Lies? yes because as the Hague has demonstrated, it is perfectly possible to firstly conduct trials where the evidence is a lot more physical and less mobile than is the case here with pure digital 'crimes', and secondly achieve success convictions of people of war crimes.
So given what we know about the US court system anyone in their right mind will be looking at using anything they can to avoid putting themselves before it.
"And it's be clearly wrong for him to be tried again for the same offense."
Typo's aside, there is no such thing as "double jeopardy" in the UK, at least not anymore. It was done away with in 2005 and acquittal's can now be quashed and retrials undertaken, if new and compelling evidence is found.
IANAL so you will need to check if it is important for you. The change in double jeopardy in the UK is related to only the most serious cases, possibly only murder. It is the result of forensic advances, principally in DNA collection and analysis, that make old cases safely (hopefully for high values of safe) open to retrial.
I have ambivalent feelings here. I am happy for evil people to get their just deserts but am also aware of the start of a slippery slope. So far there have no calls that I know of to expand the crimes open to retrial in the case of a not guilty verdict.
"It is not a necessary implication of a prognosis that he will get worse such that his condition will result in being unfit to plead.", is an argument perhaps more worthy of Sir Humphrey Appleby than of a QC.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers Jack Cade, Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, Scene 2
I've read that sentence five times now, and still don't understand it myself
Yes, it's a corker isn't it. I've read it, and re-read it, and ... and I think that what it says is :
The medical experts can't state with 100% confidence that he will get worse, therefore you should not read their reports as saying that he will get worse.
The implication then being that as you are no longer reading the medical reports as saying that he will get worse, you should assume that he won't and ship him off for torture anyway.
There is NO DEFINED LOCATION for an Internet crime. It is committed anywhere and nowhere.
There is no defining precedent either - plenty of cases where the crime goes to court where the suspect was when it was committed as well as cases where the case goes to court in the jurisdiction of the victim. In fact, there is a body of case law where the court was neither the victim, nor the target jurisdiction.
So the actual question is: "Is the offence he supposedly committed a crime under UK law". Answer is - yes it is. Tough, USA will have to wait its turn and UK has to learn something from France which makes absolutely no compromise on cases like this. If there is an offence under French law, French court and jail come first. It is a matter of national sovereignty - as Carlos the Jackal is experiencing today. USA also tried to extradite him, but the French told them to shove their extradition request somewhere... Where sun does not shine.
Let's follow this argument along. So a hacker in some foreign country with minimal punishments for hacking loots your UK bank account. Are you OK with him being prosecuted in his home country, or do you want him tried in the UK? It *is* a crime in both places, just the punishment is different.
"So a hacker in some foreign country with minimal punishments for hacking loots your UK bank account. Are you OK with him being prosecuted in his home country, or do you want him tried in the UK?"
In your hypothetical case I don't really give a toss where he's prosecuted, I care why the bank wasn't more secure and how long it's going to take them to reimburse me. I'd also want the bank to spend it's time and money securing it's systems to make sure it didn't happen again, rather than pursuing a prosecution against some person overseas who likely does not pose a further threat to me.
"There is NO DEFINED LOCATION for an Internet crime. It is committed anywhere and nowhere."There is in fact a defined location for any crime: it's where the criminal was located when the crime was committed. If you remove that critical link you end up with the silliness where a young man from the Indian sub-continent was arrested in the USA for the crime of having sex with a minor. The minor in question was his wife who he had legally married in his home country.
So I agree with you. Love ought to be tried under the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. If this was about justice, then he would be.
"If you remove that critical link you end up with the silliness where a young man from the Indian sub-continent was arrested in the USA for the crime of having sex with a minor. The minor in question was his wife who he had legally married in his home country."
Depends if the 'sex with a minor' happened in the US or not.
If it was in the US then it's still a crime, whether or not it is legal elsewhere.
Although if the extradition *is* allowed then I think I might not need to pay UK tax on the basis that I am 'abroad' at least 80% of my working day...
"Depends if the 'sex with a minor' happened in the US or not.About 50% of teenagers in the US have had sex before reaching the age of consent. Only a vanishingly small percentage of them are prosecuted. One suspects that the Indian gentleman's "crime" was marrying the girl before having sex with her.If it was in the US then it's still a crime, whether or not it is legal elsewhere."
Many moons ago the age of consent in NI was 17 (rest of the UK 16). Minimum age to get married was 16. Never heard of anyone getting prosecuted for under age sex with their spouse. One of life's little inconsistencies smoothed over by a sensible application of the law.
"If it was in the US then it's still a crime, whether or not it is legal elsewhere."
I think the best way to alter this analogy to fit the Lauri Love case is to say, an Indian man with his pregnant teenage wife comes to the USA and is arrested for having sex with a minor on the basis that her being pregnant is evidence of the crime and she (the evidence) is in the USA even though the action that generated the evidence was committed elsewhere.
To make it more accurate, make it a British man with an underage pregnant girl who both come to the USA. Again the evidence of the crime is in the USA, but the actual crime was committed elsewhere, though now it was crime in the original location too. Should a prosecution for sex with a minor be sought in the USA where the evidence is but no criminal action has been committed, or in the UK where the actual action (no pun intended) took place.
This is all going too far. In such cases, the individuals concerned ought to be dealt with via the British judicial system not least because the criminal actions were committed in the United Kingdom and because there will almost certainly be some criminal relevant offences under UK legislation which have been broken.
I agree. Dispense with the long drawn out, controversial extradition process entirely. Just try him in Britain and if found guilty, cane his pasty whites about fifty times. He gets the message loud and clear, and then it's all over. There won't be nearly enough time for Love to lose his marbles that way.
"cane his pasty whites about fifty times. "
Did the Greggs sausage roll in the manger thing really upset you that much?
because there will almost certainly be some criminal relevant offences under UK legislation which have been broken.
Computer Misuse Act. gets you coming and going. It's an offence if you do naughty things to a computer outside the UK from inside the UK. It's an offence if you do naughty things to a computer inside the UK from outside the UK.
Maybe lesson one in any GCSE (or whatever they're called these days) curriculum should be an introduction to the CMA.
"It's an offence if you do naughty things to a computer outside the UK from inside the UK. It's an offence if you do naughty things to a computer inside the UK from outside the UK."
First part of that means that he could (and should) be tried in this country. If the US authorities are refusing to assist the UK Police and CPS with their investigations they should be told to bugger off with their extradition request - why should assistance between law enforcement agencies be one way only?
Lack of sufficient evidence to support a case proceeding to prosecution should be an absoute bar to extradition being granted. If the UK were trying to extradite a US citizen (or practically any other nation's citizen) I am sure it would be.
except in the headpiece. If Love is found unfit to stand trial, then he gets indefinite detention. A life sentence and no trial to determine his innocence or otherwise needed. Cheaper and no extended period of embarrassment for the entities who were too lazy/incompetent to secure their servers against the attacks.
I knew Lauri when he was a student at 6th Form College. I got the the impression from him, that as far as he was concerned, rules didn't apply to him. He would have been taught about the CMA as part of his IT Course (the one he dropped out of & then quit college before he got expelled).
IIRC if you have Aspergers, you still know the difference between right & wrong & the risks you are taking should you choose to break the law. If he has nothing to hide, why not hand over his decryption keys so his innocence can be proved? Or is there evidence on his devices that may incriminate him of other crimes?
I for one do not wish to see an Aspergers diagnosis being used as a get out of jail free card.
Remember, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
"I for one do not wish to see an Aspergers diagnosis being used as a get out of jail free card."
Posting AC to protect my son's identity. He has Asperger's and I agree from experience, that it should not be used as a 'get out of jail free card'. However the problem here is that there is a perception that the USA 'justice' system is vindictive and will get it's ounce of flesh come what may. (Remember this is the country that forces mentally ill inmates to take medication just so that they can be sane enough to be executed http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7420/889.4/rapid-responses).
No British citizen should ever be extradited to the States. If they've committed a crime in the UK then they should go in front of a British court and spend time in a British Jail if found guilty. Although I have friends who live in the States, and I think that they're generally really great people, I would not want to get involved in their 'justice' system.
The facts are, the crime(s) with which he has been accused of were committed from within the UK. We have s.1-3 of the Computer Misuse Act, which appears to cover them all adequately, and the evidence, which would rely heavily of Digital Forensic reports, as it does in all Cyber cases, could be easily transmitted. Any HDD images etc. could be sent over in chain of custody for analysis in this country in respect of the defence, therefore I can't see any reason as to why he cannot face trial in a UK court. Looks a little like the good ole' USofA want him there for a show trial where he gets 99 years if found guilty or until he dies if he cannot stand trial, pretty sure there is a human rights question in that little point.
Regardless of the merits (or otherwise) of the case and where the actual offence may have been committed, I have another misgiving about this whole thing.
Given the developments over the last days and weeks in the US, should we be extraditing people to a judicial system run by AG Jeff Sessions and his boss Donald Trump.? The US Supreme Court is blatantly political in appointments and judgements. Can we trust the well-being of a UK citizen to them. And if them, why not Russia or China?
Try him in the UK by our standards or not at all. Surely that is the message of Brexit; regain control and sovereignty.
"Love is accused by American prosecutors of hacking into the servers of a variety of US government agencies, including systems used by the US Federal Reserve, the Missile Defense Agency, NASA, the FBI, the US Army, and healthcare companies. Staff records and credit card details were accessed by Love between 2012 and 2013, it has been claimed."
Now thanks to Snowden and co, I now know that the assorted alphabet soup that is the Five Eyes "Intelligence" community has been rummaging through my private details on the Internet and before that on the local networks on the nationstates of the Five Eyes where I have been resident.
What are the chances of my demand for the extradition of the various Five Eyes "Intelligence" communities to answer charges of state-sponsored international criminal breach of my privacy? What are the chances of them ever being extradited for answering charges of providing material support to terrorists by copying my personal communications and details into walk-in "data silos"? What are the chances of hanging a president or three for the crime of breaching personal and private communications without warrant, on a regular and systemic basis?
Time to wake up, folks. Let's sink the USS Terrified Of Everything before it becomes the USS Terrified of Every Think.
Citizens of some countries have a constitutional right not to be extradited. That's it. If UK did that we could permanently end these battles about where the crime was committed. We would need a constitution first obviously. This sort of thing is only going to get worse as more and more bits of real life get connected to the internet.
going back a few years a court refused to extradite a sex offender because the states potential punishment was considered a breach of human rights.
It's also worth noting the UK can't extradite if the death penalty is an option. Not something the US likes but every so often Canada forces them to take it off the table, or they won't extradite.
For a beacon of the civilised world, the US can be very insecure at times.
I'd start by deciding whether, if the situation were reversed (American citizen hacking MI5 from his Texas bedroom), the US would be at all likely to agree to extradite that person to the UK to face trial.
I'm pretty certain the answer to that would be "no way". The US even refused to extradite IRA terrorists who had committed murder while in the UK.
I'd then apply the legal principle of sauce, goose & gander.
I'm sorry but how can any supposedly modern democracy hold someone indefinitely without trail?
I find some of these cyber crime based cases in the US have punishments that are completely disproportionate. Actually, in a lot of cases US sentences are completely disproportionate. You'd wonder about extraditing anyone there at all.
Even just based on the fact that their incarceration rate is so high should be an indication of the kind of system they operate.
Prison population per 100,000
USA: 693
England/Wales: 146
Scotland: 141
Northern Ireland: 78
Republic of Ireland: 79
France: 103
Germany: 78
Netherlands: 69
Australia: 168
Canada: 114
Even:
Russia: 450
If the real issue here is lack of justice and inability of a UK citizen to receive a fair trail in the USA, let's say so and make that the subject of discussion. Making this something about mental health (mumble mumble) just avoids the real issue and can be considered an enabling behavior.
This guy is no threat to anyone. Trump is. Frankly its time the UK extradited Trump and stuck him on trial for sexual abuse. Not since King George has the colony required sorting out as much as now. That 'extradition' treaty should be ripped up. We are not part of the US, and it should not have powers to grab anyone at will.
Look at the amount of shit he pumps out via his verified Twitter account and tell me there's really something wrong with him. Maybe his lawyers should have told him to keep it down? As it is he's a crap excuse for a 'hacker' who seems to be enjoying the attention, not some sort of victim.
He got caught and he's trying to dodge the consequences via a lot of weak excuses that don't hold up to scrutiny.
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