Judicial federalism outside the US Does any other federal country use a US-like system of having both a local and federal court systems, applying different rules of procedure and enabling the equivalent of double jeopardy, i.e where someone can be tried in parallel in the two systems for the same acts ?
While this isn't a simple and direct answer, it should point you in the right direction. There are countries which like the United States have parallel national and subnational court system, including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, and Switzerland. Different rules of procedure for different courts within a larger overall court system for a federal jurisdiction are not that unusual even in nominally unitary court systems. But, the division between them is on something of a continuum with fine shades of differences between them. Only a few are as close to the extreme of power sharing and a &quot;federalist&quot; approach as the United States, however. Also even unitary court systems (in a geographic and federalism sense) often have parallel court systems on subject matter grounds. For example, France has both ordinary civil courts and labor courts whose rulings could overlap, and England historically had courts of law and courts of equity with a complex relationship to each other (and also ecclesiastical courts with jurisdiction of matters now vested in the civil courts of law like inheritance of tangible personal property). Similarly, Northern Ireland has or has had what amount to different parallel legal systems for terrorism and non-terrorism criminal offense. Most countries also have parallel criminal and quasi-criminal legal systems for civilians and soldiers respectively. I've seen this tension between the two systems as a plot point in contemporary English police procedural dramas, for example. On the other hand, systems with a more unitary legal system rarely are so fierce in their defense of protections against double jeopardy as the United States, and the dual sovereignty doctrine in U.S. double jeopardy law can be seen as a safety valve in practice and as applied in cases where the double jeopardy rule as interpreted under the U.S. Constitution is too strong a bar to legitimate second prosecutions. A comparative analysis of double jeopardy concepts can be found here. It is tricky to reduce the subtly differences between the rules in different countries to a clear yes or no kind of answer. A square answer to your question requires detailed examination of a dozen or more court systems that someone felt the need to write a book about to explain. If I can find a more specific answer I will update this one.
Are there any legal terms which can make it clear that such questions are about the &quot;outside of reach&quot; rather than &quot;outside of claim of reach&quot; situations? Enforceability Laws that claim but cannot reach lack enforceability. Note that enforceability is case-specific and subjective. The US may or may not be able to reach out to those it deems to be criminals on the other side of the world; those may or may not care.
Yes. In a civil case, there are two parties and the case is about finding out who has which obligations to whom. In a civil case, the plaintiff has to prove that they actually incurred damage through the actions of the defendant. A criminal case is the state vs. the defendant. The "wronged party" is the society as a whole, usually represented by the prosecutor. The victim, if there is one, just plays the role of yet another witness to find out if the defendant needs to be punished and how. There are also examples of crimes which are completely victimless but still punished by some societies. For example, in many places sexual intercourse between two consenting adult siblings is a crime (incest), even though there is no victim. Also, for some crimes it is even a crime to attempt to commit it. So one can be punished in a criminal court even though they didn't actually succeed in causing any damage to anyone. Example: I throw a rock at your car. When I hit, you can sue me in a civil court and force me to pay for the repairs. When I miss, I caused no damage to you, so there is nothing you could sue about. But what if I throw a rock at you and miss? That's attempted assault, maybe even attempted murder. When law enforcement finds out about it, I could be arrested, prosecuted and convicted to a prision sentence, even though you are perfectly fine.
The pardon does what it says it does Typically, the pardon is given for which the accused has already been convicted. Therefore, the principle of double jeopardy applies: the person has already been tried on the facts and all the charges that were or should have been brought have been determined. This, of course, doesn't prevent charges from being laid for other crimes allegedly committed at other times over different events. In the case where a person is pardoned more broadly, as in the Michael Flynn example, in addition to the double jeopardy limitation, a prosecutor is prevented from charging anything that falls within the scope of the pardon. Pardons do not constrain civil suits If you are pardoned of say, murder, that does not prevent the victim's dependants from bringing a wrongful death suit, just as being found not guilty wouldn't. These are different cases with different parties and the pardon has no effect. Similarly, a Federal pardon does not prevent a State (or another country) from laying charges over the same matter and vice-versa.
State crimes must be prosecuted by state prosecutors in state courts. Federal crimes must be prosecuted by federal prosecutors in federal courts. hszmv's answer describes the DOJ's policy where there is overlap. In Indian country (this is a term of art in U.S. law), jurisdiction is much more complicated. In brief, there is often exclusive tribal jurisdiction when the alleged offence has an Indian accused and Indian victim. For a listed set of major crimes, jurisdiction is exclusively federal (except in states where that jurisdiction has been granted to the states), even if incorporating as federal law the state's definitions of particular crimes.
The law was first promulgated on June 8, 1940 By the 76th Congress. The original text is here. It doesn’t seem to be a particularly important piece of legislation and I can find commentary on it and I’m not going to read the debates - if you do, please get back to us. Two points to note, it was passed at a time when most of the rest of the world was at war and the US was quietly preparing to be at war and it seems to be intended to fill a gap in state law since conviction under state law is a defence under Federal.
From what I can gather, a US citizen could literally commit first-degree murder in another country, and not be held liable in US courts. Yes. From looking at the decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., it seems a corporation could go so far as to commit genocide in another country and not be held accountable in US courts. Yes. Why is US law set up in this way, and why has nothing been done to change it? Extraterritorality The modern nation-state is part of the Westphalian tradition of sovereignty which takes as a core value that the internal laws of each nation-state are a matter for it and it alone. This is baked into international law as part of the UN charter: &quot;nothing ... shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.&quot; The basic assumption of criminal law is that it is, by default, territorial. If a US national commits a crime in the Ivory Coast, then that is primarily the Ivory Coast's problem to deal with. There are both practical and political reasons why this is a good idea. The practical matters are that law enforcement and the courts in the Ivory Coast have the on-the-ground resources and knowledge to investigate and prosecute the crime and the US doesn't. US police forces can't collect evidence and interview witnesses in the Ivory Coast unless the Ivory Coast allows it. US courts can't subpoena witnesses. On the flip side, foreign jurisdictions don't have to follow the US Constitution when conducting searches and beating up, I mean, interrogating, suspects. That may make a lot of the evidence collected in foreign jurisdictions inadmissible in US courts. The political reasons are the US (and anyone else) should stay the f&amp;^% out of the internal operations of other countries. The treaty of Westphalia ended 30 years of the most brutal warfare in history, which killed an estimated one-third of Europe's population, which was largely fought because the ruler of country X wanted to tell the ruler of country Y what religion they should have. Extraterritorality in US law Constitutional restrictions can limit exterritoriality. First, the statute must be within Congress' power to enact. Second, neither the statute nor its application may violate due process or any other constitutional right (see above). The presumption is that Federal laws only apply within US territory. To be extraterritorial, Congress must make this clear, ideally explicitly, but the courts can find that some laws are implicitly extraterritorial based on their language. Other nation's approach is different. For example, a French citizen is subject to French as well as local law everywhere in the world.
Generally not. Federal court uses a principle known as the enrolled bill rule -- in deference to the coequal status of the three branches of government, the "enrolled bill" (the thing printed on fancy paper that actually went to the President for signature) is irrebuttable evidence that the law was properly passed. The courts cannot deal with inquiries into whether legislative process was followed; it's the legislature's job to decide what the right process is. They can't even look into whether the same text passed both houses -- as a matter of law, the enrolled bill is conclusive evidence that it did. Senate rules are enforceable in the Senate. But the Senate is the body in charge of enforcing them, not the courts.