If I&#39;ve been prosecuted for a crime by another country can the US prosecute me for the same crime afterwards? Lets say that I commit a crime in which the USA and another country both have jurisdiction. As an example I, a US citizen, kill Bob, a citizen of country X, while we're located in Antartica. Country X catches me first and puts me on trial; they refuse to extradite me to the USA when asked. However, for some reason X has some bizzare rules that makes them far more lenient towards my crime - maybe the leaders X are all horrible racists towards Bob's race, which means it's both more likely that I will be found 'innocent' of the crime despite my having done it and I face a drastically lower penalty if found guilty. Eventually some time after the trial I return to the USA. The local authorities would like to see me face a harsher penalty for my crime. I'm wondering if they have any way to try or imprison me under these circumstances: I was put on trial but found not guilty of the crime I was found guilty, spent 2 weeks in jail and paid a 50 dollar fine I was found guilty of a crime for my actions, but the crime was different from the crime as the USA would define it (for instance the country is so horribly racist they don't consider killing a member of Bob's race murder and instead tried me on something else like animal cruelty). Would it matter if the countries have an extradition treaty, or if the crime was something other than murder, like bribery or grand theft?
You can be prosecuted for the crime in the U.S., both at the federal level and at the U.S. state level (or both), completely without regard to what happened in the criminal justice process elsewhere. This is true in all of the scenarios you pose, for any offense, and with or without an extradition treaty (of course, unless the treaty had some anomalous provision to the contrary or deprived the U.S. of jurisdiction by statute rather than constitutionally of this crime). The U.S. Supreme Court determined in Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82 (1985) that the double jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution is applied separately with regard to each sovereign involved and that each state and the federal government count as separate sovereigns. In the pertinent part, it states: The dual sovereignty doctrine is founded on the common law conception of crime as an offense against the sovereignty of the government. When a defendant in a single act violates the &quot;peace and dignity&quot; of two sovereigns by breaking the laws of each, he has committed two distinct &quot;offences.&quot; United States v. Lanza, 260 U. S. 377, 260 U. S. 382 (1922). As the Court explained in Moore v. Illinois, 14 How. 13, 55 U. S. 19 (1852), &quot;[a]n offence, in its legal signification, means the transgression of a law.&quot; Consequently, when the same act transgresses the laws of two sovereigns, &quot;it cannot be truly averred that the offender has been twice punished for the same offence, but only that by one act he has committed two offences, for each of which he is justly punishable.&quot; Id. at 55 U. S. 20. In practice, the U.S. Justice Department and most state and local prosecutors are disinclined to prosecute a crime that has already been handled by another jurisdiction and often have official, but non-binding, policies to that effect. In part, this is because an acquittal in one jurisdiction makes it likely that it is a weak case, while a conviction in one jurisdiction often constitutes sufficient punishment. There could be an issue under the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (cruel and unusual punishment) over whether a punishment imposed in a U.S. conviction for a crime needs to consider the already severe punishment imposed in another jurisdiction for the same crime in order to prevent the cumulative punishment from being cruel and unusual. But, I am not aware of authoritative case law that resolves that constitutional question. Certainly, evidence of a prior punishment for the same offense could be presented at a sentencing hearing following a conviction in mitigation of the punishment that should be imposed. Indeed, in some states time served pursuant to a conviction for the same crime in another jurisdiction might statutorily count as &quot;time served&quot; for which the defendant is legally entitled to credit at sentencing.
That's basically correct. The Double Jeopardy clause prevents the federal and state governments from trying you again for a crime that you've already been acquitted of, no matter what new evidence turns up. Even if you confessed to the crime, you could still not be tried. The relevant text of the Fifth Amendment reads: No person shall ... be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. The case of Mel Ignatow is probably among the most famous examples. He was charged with murdering a woman, but acquitted at trial. About a year later, a guy laying carpet at his house pulled up floorboards and found the victim's jewelry, along with pictures of Ignatow murdering the victim. Ignatow confessed, but the state couldn't charge him with murder again, though they could charge him perjury for testifying that he hadn't killed her. So the answer is yes, the Fifth Amendment generally prevents the government from trying you for a crime you've been acquitted of. There are two main caveats here. First is the dual-sovereignty principle, which accounts for the fact that almost anywhere that the Fifth Amendment applies, a person is subject to the laws of two sovereign governments: the federal government and that of whatever state the person is in. For example, robbing a bank in Los Angeles would violate the laws of both the United States and California. If California put you on trial, but you were acquitted, the Double Jeopardy Clause would bar California from trying you again, but it would not be a defense if the federal government wanted to try to charge you again. Second is the language about &quot;the same offence,&quot; which is not as clear as it might sound at first. In the course of committing a crime, a person can easily commit many other crimes without thinking of it. In your bank robbery, for instance, you could easily break the following additional laws: trespassing, menacing, carrying a concealed weapon, brandishing a firearm, larceny, grand larceny. This raises the question of what affect your acquittal on the robbery charge has on the possibility of charging you on these other offenses. The answer can be found in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304 (1932): The applicable rule is that, where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one is whether each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not. This is easier to understand in practice than in theory. If you want to bring charges for the same conduct without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause, you need to be able to make a Venn diagram where the first charge and the new charge each has at least one element that the other does not. So map out the following possible offenses involved in a robbery: theft: unlawfully taking the property of another person aggravated theft: unlawfully taking the property of another person, when the property is worth more than $1,000 menacing: threatening to injure another person aggravated menacing: threatening to injure another person while brandishing a deadly weapon robbery: unlawfully taking the property of another person, facilitated by a threat to injure another person aggravated robbery: unlawfully taking the property of another person, facilitated by a threat to injure another person while brandishing a deadly weapon So now you have a Venn diagram that looks like this: If you've been acquitted of robbery, a prosecutor who wants to charge you again needs to find an offense that (1) requires proof of a fact that robbery did not, and (2) does not require proof of a fact that robbery did. This means the prosecutor can't bring a charge for the &quot;greater offense&quot; of aggravated robbery, because the earlier robbery charge didn't require proof of anything that aggravated robbery would not. The prosecutor also can't bring a charge for theft or menacing, because neither requires proof of anything that robbery did not. These are called &quot;lesser included offenses.&quot; But a charge for aggravated theft would be allowed. Although there's a shared element between aggravated theft and robbery (taking the property of another), there are also unique elements to both aggravated theft (property worth more than $1,000) and robbery (a threat to injure another). A charge for aggravated menacing would also be allowed, as it requires proof of brandishing a deadly weapon, but does not require proof of taking the property of another.
This issue was addressed in United States v. Meng, 2020 BCSC 785. The authority to extradite is via the extraditing state's treaty with the U.S. and its domestic implementing legislation. In Canada, this is the Extradition Act. Extradition requires consent of the extraditing state and for the requesting state to follow the extraditing state's domestic procedure. The question you raise is how sanctions of requesting state affect the interpretation of the domestic offence for the purpose of establishing the double criminality requirement. Critical in this case was that the charged offence was fraud against HSBC (albeit based on alleged concealment of sanctions violations). See para. 23: The double criminality question in the committal hearing is therefore whether Ms. Meng’s alleged conduct, had it occurred in Canada, would have amounted to fraud contrary to s. 380(1)(a) of the Criminal Code. Ms. Meng argued: that the conduct cannot amount to fraud because in essence the proposed prosecution is to enforce US sanctions laws against Iran, measures that are not part of Canadian law and which, indeed, Canada has expressly rejected. The Attorney General argued: that the double criminality analysis may properly take the US sanctions into account as part of the foreign legal backdrop against which the essential conduct is to be understood. The court agreed with the Attorney General: The effects of the US sanctions may properly play a role in the double criminality analysis as part of the background or context against which the alleged conduct is examined.
england-and-wales Yes, double jeopardy applies The common law pleas of autrefois acquit and autrefois convict apply equally to foreign offences; this is black letter law in Halsbury's Laws of England. Scotland is &quot;foreign&quot; for these purposes. There is no analogue to the odd US dual sovereignty doctrine. The general exception to double jeopardy regarding the re-trial of serious offences under Part 10 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 does not apply here, because of an odd anomaly created by the statute due to criminal justice being devolved to the Scottish Parliament. As a result, according to the Crown Prosecution Service: There are no provisions dealing with qualifying offences [for retrial after acquittal] in Scotland as criminal justice is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. At present, the law in Scotland has not been changed so that these provisions do not apply to acquittals that take place in Scotland.
The most commonly used definition for statehood is the declaratory theory, codified by the Montevideo Convention. This says that statehood doesn't depend on recognition by other states; it merely requires four things: A defined territory A permanent population An effective government The capacity to enter into relations with other states. You immediately run into issues around the defined territory (you don't really have one) and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. But let's ignore those for a second. Meeting these requirements in some abstract world doesn't mean you get treated like a state. If no one else agrees with your claim to statehood and they act inconsistently with it, you have little recourse. You might get them not caring enough to do anything about it, but if they decide you're not a country you're out of luck. You have some misconceptions about statehood as well. A country is allowed to forbid trade with any foreign country, even ones it recognizes as sovereign states. See: US embargo on Cuba. It is also entitled to deny foreign ships access to its ports. Ships flying the flag of a sovereign state are entitled to innocent passage through territorial waters of another state, but not to the use of that state's ports. A country can certainly allow people to be killed and still be a country. See: the US, which has the death penalty for certain crimes. But if you're killing nationals of a foreign country, that foreign country is likely to take a keen interest in your activities. If the killings are judicially-ordered executions based on violations of your penal laws, that's one thing -- Australia might consider it awful that an Australian citizen was shot by Indonesia for drug smuggling, but they recognize that Indonesia is a real country with its own laws that it has a right to apply. If it's just lawless there, the keen interest might culminate in a travel warning. But in more extreme cases, or where the killings are of people who didn't willingly enter your territory, you're looking at potential military action.
I can’t speak for Indonesia but if you did this in Australia you would be a criminal. You either committed fraud or are an accessory to fraud. You would probably be considered an accessory at and after the fact which means you are subject to the same maximum penalty as if you had committed the fraud yourself - 10 years in jail. In addition, you are liable to repay the money taken, jointly and severally with your ‘friend’. However, if they can only find you, you cannot recover from your ‘friend’ as you were engaged in a joint criminal enterprise. Scams such as you describe are distressingly common and many people fall for them. As such, assuming the court accepted your story (because you might actually be the fraudster and have just made it up) you would be unlikely to get close to the full sentence and if you caught the judge on a good day, might even escape jail. If you are lucky, the jury might acquit, even though, on the facts, they shouldn’t - juries do what juries do. If you’re really lucky the police might decide not to prosecute.
The governing law would be the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961). The relevant part is Article 29. Diplomats must not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. Diplomats are also immune from civil and criminal prosecution. Technically, it wasn't a US diplomat but a family member, but by Article 37 they have the same protection. The linked article suggests that her diplomatic immunity ended, but that's a bit of a non-issue. The host nation (the UK in this case) can declare anyone, diplomats or family to be persona non grata which indeed ends diplomatic immunity, but only after the person is allowed to leave the host nation. And when the act happened, the immunity was in place. Immunity cannot retroactively be withdrawn by the host nation.
First, while Law and Order should not be taken as an accurate depiction of a New York trial, it especially should not be taken as an accurate depiction of an Australian trial. Australian law, while it has some major similarities with US law (both ultimately derive from the law of England), is not US law. With procedural matters (such as "may jurors ask questions of witnesses"), it can potentially differ from court to court. In general, jurors may not simply ask a witness a question. The jury's job is not to investigate and figure out if the defendant was guilty or not; it's to evaluate the cases presented by each side. US (and Australian, as far as I know) courts use what's known as the adversarial model, where the prosecution and the defense both present the best cases they can and a neutral third party decides which case was stronger. In a US criminal trial, the state is expected to justify why someone should be in jail; the jury shouldn't be helping them justify it. This isn't how all jurisdictions around the world work, but it's how the US does. One concern with juror questions is that it has the risk that the juror will not be impartial. Jurors are not supposed to get into arguments with witnesses, or to go after them to try to prove a point. In your case, the juror might be introducing an entirely different line of reasoning from the one either side is presenting, and that's simply not their job. People have raised the concern that a juror thinking up questions might be deciding the case before they hear all the evidence, and might give too much weight to the answers to their own questions (or read a lot into it if a question is denied). There are also rules on what questions may be legally asked; lawyers know these and jurors generally don't, which is why jurors may almost never directly ask a question to a witness. Where they can ask questions, it's virtually always written questions, which the judge reviews, gives to both sides to see if anyone objects, and then reads to the witness in a neutral tone.