Same old story, regardless of which political party is in power, when the Yanks say "Jump", the Australian government says "How high?"

David

its sad to see..the beatups the me-dia..picks-up

what...he's a mate of yours?
clearly he had friends in high places..to only get charged with man-SLAUGHTER...what he did is despicable...killing a bride..for money...setting upa fake marrage..only to get the insurance

the dude needs hanging by his testicles....simply for being a bturd

think of this..he hugs his '..wife'
puts his arms arround her....then slowley turns off the air in herv tank..[this dude is scum]...then holds her while she dies
then throws off her corpse...into the deep

then recalls he forgot to turnback on her air...and all govt can get..is lesds than two year's?

lets look at your CASE

<<That a person...should not>>[ie NOT must not]

<<be tried again for an offence>>this is more than offence[its murder..no time limitations...not offence..criminal act

offence is aa justrice system jailing a druggie for 20 years

<<in respect of which..he or she can been convicted>>>can been..your a writer..cant even write..'be'..or in the same past/present tense?

<<or acquitted..>>...well let the courts determine..if this is fact..or theory

<<The Article 14(7)..of the International Covenant..on Civil and Political Rights is unambiguous. "No-one shall be liable to be tried or punished..again for an offence for which he has already been finally convicted or acquitted in accordance with the law and penal procedure of each country,">>.

ok he has a conviction for manslaughter

HE HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED FOR..MURDER
or FRAUD..ie the life-insurance
or mutilating a corpse

heck...this dude is SCUM
write about real stuff

has this international coven-ant..been ratified..by the courts..here

i certainly havnt had much response to quoting it HERE in court

you lot..of the media..can spin..your spin
but law id a bit more precice..than your c-lap/t-rap

[i think i got the -lap....confused with the -rap]

what..your both masons?
or children..of the same boys club?

A life is worth more than an 18 month sentence and then the getting on with life of the life taker.

In all probability the act was premeditated and deserved many more years than Watson got.

He is an American citizen. He took the life of another American citizen. He should be returned forthwith so that the American justice system can judge him far more appropriately than did the Australian system.

From what I have observed about the death of his wife and his behaviour, he should be retried.

if our Court system was worth a pinch of salt we would not be having this discussion. A life in this country is very cheap.

Our member, Peter Dutton, has been active in trying to get rid of the double jeopardy protection. He has cited a case where a man has been found not guilty who is apparently guilty of murder. I think we have the double jeopardy provision for good reason. Without it the state can keep trying and retrying a person for the same offense. With it there will be miscarriages of justice. However, I think without there will be greater miscarriages of justice.

Watson seems like a dirty dog. However, a dirty dog is entitled to the same protection under law as anybody else. I do not think he should be extradited to Alabama.

"Same old story, regardless of which political party is in power, when the Yanks say "Jump", the Australian government says "How high?"

David

The US have had their eyes on this land for a while, and when you out grow one country, you look for another. ( and not just the US )

Keep letting them in and watch our wonderland distroyed.

But you know what they say, the more people, the more money.

mmmmm hard choice.

BLUE

I think Greg Barnes is wrong, this is not an issue on double jeopardy, rather one of the US recognising and respecting the legal systems of other countries.

I understand the US consititution enshrines the principle of double jeopardy. Therefore, to retry Watson would require the US Courts to not recognise the Australian Court system.

Law and order politicians right here in NSW have trashed our human rights by abolishing Double Jeopardy. We need to have the statute which abolished it repealed urgently.

I believe that the Double Jeopardy rule must be absolute and final in all cases. That is if a person is acquitted, thats the end of it. The government must only have one bite of the cherry. Same as in this case. As there is a risk that this bloke will have his human rights violated, we must refuse to extradite him and grant him asylum. He's done his time. We hand out asylum like lollies, to people who deliberately destroy or fail to carry their papers, so they can fabricate their nationality, their story, etc.

Seems like Uncle Sam, we're fast becoming an authoritarian free-market state.

I agree that double jeopardy has to be protected from politicians on a power trip.

I do not have information about the case but why was Gabe Watson convicted with manslaughter in the first place? According to this article the Alabama authorities want to charge him with murder and kidnapping.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/honeymoon-killer-lands-in-melbourne-20101111-17okm.html

Do they know something we don't know? Have they got evidence to support a murder conviction? I am no legal expert but I would think that US and Australian systems of justice are more or less compatible with respect to accepting and reviewing evidence.

Either our justice system needs a serious looking into or the Alabama authorities are up to something. And if Alabama and the US cannot trust Australian justice, what does that say about one of our closest allies? Maybe the fact that Australia doesn't stand up to the US in certain areas is returned to us when the US decides to refrain from saying: "your justice system is..."

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

So where were all the bleeding hearts when the Federal Police tipped off the Indonesians about the Bali nine? There would seem to be more concern for a man who killed his bride for the insurance money than for a few stupid kids. All Mr and Mrs Rush got was an unmet assurance to protect their wayward son from his own stupidity.

What is most detestable is the belief that Australia should be a moral guidance officer for other nations. Alabama would rightly be contemptuous of such pomposity.

Regardless of whether or not the guy is scum, or American, or a freemason, or a boy scout, or anything else for that matter, he committed a crime in Australia. We can argue until we are blue in the face about whether or not our system dispensed justice, but the fact is that he did not commit a capital offence in the state of Alabama, so he should not be tried for a capital offence in that case.

Handing him over to be tried for murder could well set a dangerous precedent. In effect, it would be telling the USA that it is OK for them to override our legal system whenever they don't like our decisions. Would the same apply if we convicted an American of murdering another American in our nation, but they felt that he (or she) should be acquitted? The ingredients are all there - two Americans, a crime in Australia and a legal finding deemed unsatisfactory by the USA.

Double jeopardy should be unless new evidence works against the last conviction. Well, your practically US anyway...........so do what your boss says.

BLUE

Cogent and rational posts from:

David f
Fester
Otokonoko

Seeing contributors like you are still posting on OLO gives me hope.

It is curious that the extradition of Watson is being sought not only on a charge of murder, but on one of kidnapping as well. For all that the murder of his wife in the circumstances alleged constituted a most monstrous betrayal, kidnap was very clearly in no way part of what happened. Surely the Australian government, in an extradition hearing, should be demanding to see any evidence upon which such a charge could possibly have been based.

If, as I suspect, there is no basis to argue kidnap as defined under Australian law (in which jurisdiction its presumably alleged to have occurred) to have been involved, then the sincerity with which the associated charge of murder that has now been laid by the State of Alabama is also called into question.

The alleged murder occurred in the State of Queensland. The circumstances of the death of Mrs Watson have been the subject of a coronial inquest in that State. Subsequently, the Queensland DPP decided that a conviction for murder was unlikely to be obtained on the evidence available, so no such charge was laid, which is where, so far as Australia is concerned, the matter should perhaps have been let rest.

Gabe Watson, presumably in Australia on a tourist visa, in due course should have been required to leave the country without being charged. Had that happened, and he re-entered US jurisdiction, the State of Alabama may have been free to bring whatever charges it thought could be sustained without any question as to the violation of double jeopardy occurring.

That Watson is reported as 'volunteering' to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter, and been so obligingly accommodated by the State of Queensland, should be a matter of profound concern to all Australians. The laying of such lesser charge smacks of the system of plea bargaining so pervasive in the administration of US 'justice'.

Australia is a Constitutional Monarchy and justice is the property of the Crown. It is for no one to trade in for the purpose of getting conviction 'runs' on the board.

TBC

It will be a tragic, bitter irony if those involved in investigation of the Watson case were so prepared to usurp the role of judge and jury, whether because of an ironclad conviction that Watson was guilty of murder and therefore deserving of punishment under an inappropriate charge to which he was prepared to plead guilty, or because of external pressures that may have amounted to legalistic vendetta, that their actions in bringing an inappropriate charge have now closed the gate on what may otherwise have been legitimate pursuit of justice by the State of Alabama.

For Australian authorities to close their eyes to the implications of the seemingly unfounded charge of kidnap would be to participate in the facilitation of a legal device designed to get around the double jeopardy provisions just so US authorities can get their hands on an accused person for extradition purposes.

Quite apart from allowing the disrespect being shown for Australian jurisprudence in this matter to go unchallenged, the participation of the Australian government in what is at its least impropriety a seeming ploy to circumvent the provisions of not only the ICCPR, but more importantly a fundamental feature of both Australian and US law, for purposes of facilitating an extradition would set what might be a most dangerous precedent.

The US is coming to have an appalling record with respect to its expectations as to extraditions.

Take the case of Brian and Kerry Howes, UK citizens, whose extradition to the US is currently sought in relation to the supply of chemicals lawfully able to be so traded within the UK. Brian Howes was imprisoned for 247 days WITHOUT CHARGE, let alone extradition hearing, on the basis of request alone, under the terms of the UK Extradition Act. He has for several years now been under house arrest resisting the bullying/intimidation of a plea bargaining process in which his wife is being used as a hostage. http://bit.ly/bJRJ0p

That's where caving in to demands for expediency in extradition process easily leads.

The Australian government's primary concern should be that Australian jurisprudence be respected.

It is interesting to note a seeming double standard displayed in the Gabe Watson extradition case, when compared with the US government's recent attempted (and now failed) extradition of Roman Polanski from Switzerland,

Both cases have overtones of extreme distastefulness with respect to the accused, and seeming populist exploitation of that notoriety by US justice administrations one way or another involved in the cases.

In the Gabe Watson case, if I understand things correctly, the State of Alabama has asked for, and had handed over to it, all evidence presented at what I presume to have been the coronial inquest conducted in the State of Queensland, where the death of Watson's newly married bride occurred. Whether that evidence, and/or any additional evidence, was submitted to the Queensland court that subsequently recorded Watson's conviction for manslaughter I am unsure, as it is my understanding that Watson entered a guilty plea to that charge, thereby obviating, perhaps, any need for presentation and further examination of such evidence.

In the Polanski extradition case, Swiss authorities asked to see, in Switzerland, all relevant documentation relating to the conviction, sentencing, and release of Polanski prior to his becoming an alleged fugitive from US justice, with a view to determining whether AT THE TIME of his departure from the US Polanski was, or had every right to believe himself to be, a free man. The US declined to allow the Swiss to view the evidence. The Swiss, to their credit, in turn declined to extradite Polanski, and released him from custody.

It seems openness as between justice administrations of the different jurisdictions is a one-way street.

Facilitating the abandonment of long-standing prohibitions against double jeopardy, together with implicit endorsement of any system of plea bargaining, are moves that will greatly increase the risk of the convictions of innocent persons in prosecutions driven by official malice, or the taking of opportunities for the exploitation of popular sentiment.

Whatever happened to the principle that nine guilty should for the time being evade punishment, than that one innocent person should be wrongly convicted?

What worries me is the extra-territorial aspect of this case.
If a US court thinks it can prosecute for a crime committed in the
territory of another country, why then could they not prosecute me
for a crime I might commit in Australia.
For instance, if it is a crime to burn a US flag and I did so in
Australia, what is there to stop them prosecuting me here via
extradition or if I visited the US ?

Bazz' raising of extraterritoriality in relation to an Australian committing an act, in Australia, that in US law is deemed an offence, is very timely. The prospect of such Australian's extradition being sought is exactly analogous to the situation in which Brian Howes finds himself in the UK.

Brian Howes was engaged in the business of supplying chemicals, chemicals lawfully able to be traded in in the UK, some of which are able to be used in the (unlawful in the US) manufacture of methamphetamine drugs. The US, it seems, contends Howes conspiratorially supplied customers in the US, customers who were running meth labs, with such precursor chemicals. Because the UK Parliament abdicated its responsibilities to its own citizens in passing the Extradition Act (UK) 2003, inasmuch as that Act obligates the UK authorities to extradite merely upon request by the US with no requirement for any extradition hearing, Brian Howes was arrested and initially imprisoned without charge for 247 days.

Howes protests his innocence of having committed any offence. Needless to say, he also protested his imprisonment without charge, let alone hearing or trial, such that the blatantly obvious loss of the rights he would have enjoyed should he have been alleged to have committed any offence against UK law became too much of an embarrassment to the UK authorities. His imprisonment was changed to house arrest, but his extradition is still being sought by the US.

The planning for celebrations leading up to the 800th anniversary, on 15 June 2015, of the signing of the Magna Carta is already under way in Britain.

But hey, Bazz, don't worry, the Australian government have already done something similar here in Australia, right through to delivering the person sought into the custody of US officials. The case of Huw Griffiths was one in which it was alleged that the accused committed offences involving breach of copyright by way of downloads of music and such, offences committed on Australian soil which were also offences under Australian law!

Guess how our lot weaseled out of that one!

TBC

Huw Griffiths was found to be (from childhood) a permanently-resident-in-Australia British subject. That made it easy for our mob. Seemingly unmindful as to the possible unconstitutionality of aspects of Australian citizenship legislation in relation to lawfully resident British subjects, our government was only too happy to hand Huw Griffiths over to the US, because he wasn't an 'Australian citizen'. Lived all his adult life in Australia, and Australia sold him out, perhaps just to dodge the costs of a prosecution!

Returning more to topic, extraterritoriality as it may relate to the law in the State of Alabama may also be an important aspect of this extradition request for Watson. Does the law in Alabama permit the prosecution of an accused person for murder when that alleged murder occurred outside that State? The Australian government should be asking that question of both the US Federal authorities and the State of Alabama.

I am suspicious in this connection because of the charge of kidnapping upon which Watson is also sought. It is difficult to see how kidnap could have been involved in this case, much as the most dreadful deception and betrayal may be, so I query as to whether such charge is present as a device for facilitating avoidance of double jeopardy issues, or for involving the US Federal authorities in a matter where there might otherwise exist a jurisdictional no-mans-land between US Federal and Alabama authorities. If such is even remotely possibly the reason for the kidnapping charge it intensifies the obligation upon the Australian government to be extra zealous in prevention of double jeopardy occurring, because such could be indicative of a prejudiced court.

Given that the side issue as to the applicability of the death penalty for murder in Alabama has been raised by the Australian government, it should also satisfy itself as to penalties for kidnapping and assurances with respect to that.

Given US conduct in the Polanski and Howes cases the Australian government has no basis for assuming the extradition request for Watson to be that of a model litigant.

Prosecutors and Judges are distinct entities. In Australia some years ago a man was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of a toddler. He was acquitted on appeal, but subsequent forensic evidence arose which lead to a further prosecution for perjury. The jury again delivered a guilty verdict, but his conviction was quashed on appeal as it was considered in breach of the double jeopardy rule.

The prosecutors in Alabama seem keen to try Watson, but why do you think he will not be tried fairly?

Bazz, I think there are a few crimes that no matter where you commit them will lead to you be prosecuted back in Australia, if you are an Australian citizen. Treason etc.

Again, this usually means you have to come back to Australia and not be extradited, especially if it is not considered a crime where the act is commited. For example, can you imagine any country extraditing you if you sold them state secrets?

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/