Why is Julian Assange in jail? Further to another question asked on these boards: Julian Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks for jumping bail on 1 May 2019 Presumably, his jail term began immediately upon sentencing, in which case he finished serving his sentence 68+ weeks ago. He was held for several months pending extradition hearings, which itself does not make complete sense: presumably, the extradition hearings should have been conducted while he was serving the actual sentence. Why is he still being held in Belmarsh? I understand that after a very pro-extradition1 judge, overseen by one with serious conflicts2, struck down the American request for extradition, the Americans are appealing. Larger question However, my understanding is that if a judge finds someone guilty then they go to jail right away. And they have to file appeals while serving their sentence. Is the converse not true, i.e. if the judge finds someone not guilty and the government appeals, then doesn't the person contest the appeal as a free person? 1 Of her 24 previous extradition hearings, Vanessa Baraitser ordered extradition in 23. 2 Vanessa Baraitser is overseen by Emma Arbuthnot who has refused to formally recuse herself despite family connections to people cited for criminal activities in documents published by WikiLeaks.
There are two reasons for jail: Applying the sentence Denying the accused the opportunity of fleeing, destroying evidence or doing the same felonies again. The last part is always a difficult one, as the accused has still not received a veredict but has his rights severely curtailed. In general it is intended as a last ditch measure, and the circumstances of the case must be considered. In this case, after Assange spent several years holed in at Ecuador's embassy in the UK, and given that he did not surrender himself voluntarily, it is not that unreasonable to believe that he would try again to flee, as the matter is not still settled and he is still at risk of being extradited. I do not know about England, but in some countries (e.g. Spain) if you are kept in preventive custody but later found to be innocent you are automatically entitled to an indemnity. Also, for the larger question, that is not true either at least in some countries. After a guilty veredict a judge may postpone incarceration while appeals are reviewed (again considering things like flight risks). Of course, if you have condemned someone who has not been given bail due to being considered too risky, they remain in jail during the process. Also Presumably, his jail term began immediately upon sentencing. In many jurisdictions, the time served before the sentence is counted towards the sentence. If you spent 4 weeks in jail before the sentence, you have already passed 4 weeks of your sentence. If the time already spent is close to the time you would have been sentenced, the sentence specifies that you are condemned &quot;to time served&quot; and released immediately.
It's exactly the opposite. All arrests are public record under California Government Code 6254(f): Notwithstanding any other provision of this subdivision, state and local law enforcement agencies shall make public the following information, except to the extent that disclosure of a particular item of information would endanger the safety of a person involved in an investigation or would endanger the successful completion of the investigation or a related investigation: (1) The full name and occupation of every individual arrested by the agency, the individual’s physical description including date of birth, color of eyes and hair, sex, height and weight, the time and date of arrest, the time and date of booking, the location of the arrest, the factual circumstances surrounding the arrest, the amount of bail set, the time and manner of release or the location where the individual is currently being held, and all charges the individual is being held upon, including any outstanding warrants from other jurisdictions and parole or probation holds. Other than the &quot;endanger the safety&quot; exception, which could be applied case-by-case, there is no general exemption for refugees or asylum seekers. Trials are also public, see What does it mean that a trial in a US court is &quot;Public&quot;?. Members of the public cannot be excluded from a trial, and the defendant can't &quot;opt out&quot; of this. This is considered to be a central feature of US justice systems and an important check on possible abuses of the criminal judicial process.
At the federal level, per 18 USC 751, escaping is a crime. In United States v. Allen, 432 F.2d 939 it was held that an arrest need not be lawful in order for an escape to be illegal; Laws v. US states that "This court has said that a sentence imposed for a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 751 is 'not affected by the validity of the sentences being served at the time of the escape'", giving numerous citations. I don't find cases where the escapee was exonerated; prosecutors have the discretion to not prosecute for committing a crime, so it would be hard to find a case where the legality of such a conviction was upheld (also, hard to find a jury willing to convict in such circumstances).
I'm no expert, but I had assumed this clause was present in case of the following situation. Joe is arrested for a robbery of a London bank. Joe says nothing under questioning. At trial, Joe's defense is that at the time of the robbery, he was in Sheffield drinking beer with his brother. On the basis of common sense, a jury could think: "Surely if Joe were really innocent, he would have told the police of his alibi at the time he was questioned, and saved himself a lot of trouble. Since he didn't do that, maybe a more likely explanation is that he wasn't actually in Sheffield, but that sometime between arrest and trial, he came up with the idea of faking an alibi in Sheffield, and convinced people to testify falsely to that effect. Yes, that does seem more plausible. So we are not going to give much credence to Joe's supposed alibi." So it really would be the case that not mentioning the alibi during questioning would harm Joe's defense at trial. The warning, then, is intended to keep Joe from doing this inadvertently. If Joe's alibi is genuine, but out of a misguided desire to exercise his right to remain silent, he doesn't mention it during questioning, he may accidentally increase his chances of being wrongly convicted. Everybody has an interest in avoiding this.
The time spent on death row is largely due to appeals, habeas proceedings, and a growing backlog. The time between an actual final appeal and execution is not astonishingly long. (However, "final" appeal is hard to pinpoint because a death row inmate can file successive habeas petitions at the federal level). To highlight the relatively quick turnaround between a "final" appeal and execution, Richard Glossip lost an appeal to the US Supreme Court (Glossip v. Gross) on June 29, 2015 and was scheduled for execution in Oklahoma on September 30, 2015, a delay of 93 days (Mary Fallin Executive Order 2015-42). Due to unavailability of a particular drug, the execution has been further delayed until November 6, 2015 (ibid). The rest of this answer explains the long delay between initial conviction/sentencing and eventual execution, using California as an example. In California, since 1978, approximately 20-40 people have been added to death row per year, while fewer than 10 per year are executed. (California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice Final Report, p. 121) There are generally three different appeals available to the defendant: a direct appeal to the state Supreme Court, a writ of habeas corpus to the state Supreme Court, and a writ of habeas corpus to the federal district court. (ibid) The federal district court ruling regarding the habeas petition can be appealed to the 9th Circuit. That Circuit's ruling can be appealed to the US Supreme Court. (ibid) The Commission identified several points that are responsible for the long delays in California (ibid): delay in appointing counsel for direct appeal (3-5 year delay) delay in scheduling a case to the California Supreme Court (2.25 years between application and oral argument) delay in appointing counsel for the state habeas petition (8-10 year delay) delay in deciding the state habeas petition (22 months) delay in deciding federal habeas petition (6.2 years) delay in appealing the federal habeas petition to the 9th District (2.2 years) The US Supreme Court also publishes a primer on the death penalty appeals and the habeas process (see especially pp. 8-10).
england-and-wales Can the case be reopened when the defendant becomes well again? Yes See the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964, and the related Crown Prosecution Service guidance: Section 5(1)(b) and (2) of the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 provides that where a person has a finding made that they are under a disability and that they did the act or omission charged, the court shall make: a hospital order (with or without a restriction order); a supervision order; or an order for his absolute discharge. Section 5A(4) of the same provides for an express power for the Secretary of State for Justice to remit for trial a person who becomes fit for trial while detained in hospital under a hospital order and a restriction order made under section 5(2)(a) Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964. [...] Section 4A(2) Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 provides that a finding of unfitness will have the effect that the trial &quot;shall not proceed or proceed further&quot;. Although the fitness to plead procedure can result in an acquittal, a finding that the offender did the act or made the omission charged is not a conviction and does not amount to the determination of a criminal charge. It does not preclude a full trial of the accused if s/he becomes fit to be tried: R v H [2003] UKHL 1.
1: What's the correct process to get a restraining order? The police aren't involved in the formal process, although sometimes people go to the police and are told that they have to go to a judge instead. The aggrieved plaintiff presents an ex parte affidavit or makes statement in person under oath to a duty judge (who often asks clarifying questions). If this statements states a basis for a protection order one issues with a prompt return date (a week or two). At the return date the order either becomes final if the defendant doesn't show up, is vacated if the plaintiff doesn't show up, or is tried in an evidentiary hearing if both show up. Of course, a court order is ultimately just a piece of paper and there is no legal recourse against the government if they don't successfully stop the person restrained from doing something. Also enforcement of restraining orders was a lot more lax in 1987 than it is today, and men asking for restraining orders were taken less seriously then, than they are now, by most judges. 2: Can Dan keep his adultery secret during that process? Not really. In the initial ex parte hearing, Dan can probably tell the story artfully in a way that hides the adultery, but in the adversarial hearing, if there is one, the other side (or their lawyer) can ask him under oath about the affair and he has to answer truthfully in a public court hearing setting. 3: Is it plausible that Dan's family and friends don't learn about that process? Yes. Unless he's famous enough to make the newspapers (which in a decent sized city is pretty famous), and if he initiates the process, the only person who gets formal notice before the order issues is the court, and if the court issues the initial order, the only person who gets notice is the defendant. If Dan doesn't call family or friends as witnesses and don't tell his workplace why he's at court, nobody is told. It isn't a secret. It's a matter of public record that could be subsequently discovered at any time. But there is no active means of notification of friends and family in the short term. Realistically, Dan might ask a cop or a lawyer what to do, get accurate or inaccurate information, and decide not to pursue it for fear of creating sworn proof of his affair at a hearing. Cops love to provide legal advice that they aren't qualified to dispense. Dan's concern is particularly relevant because this happened in New York State in 1987 when New York State didn't have no fault divorce at the time, and the outcome of divorce proceedings on the merits for property division and alimony and custody would have been heavily influenced by marital fault in the divorce case. Revealing an affair under oath as he might have been required to do at a hearing would have crushed him in a subsequent divorce outcome if his wife found out and decided to divorce him.
Your question slightly misrepresents what the article says: Yes, the judge denied the motion which led to the collapse of the case, he did not make a ruling on the substance of the case. The distinction is significant to my mind as the judge was using non-evidentiary knowledge (i.e. what he read in the paper) to make a decision on process; in this case a process that would have put a lot of people to a lot of inconvenience. It would not be proper for the judge to have used such knowledge to inform a judgement. It is also not clear from the article if the academic paper in question was actually introduced by the defendant as evidence. If that was the case then it is only right and proper for the judge to consider it. As to why a judge is allowed to read the news and a jury is not, I can offer several ideas: A judge must document their reasoning process in a judgement which is subject to review - if they were to make a decision based on matters not supported by the evidence then an appeals court could correct it. Alternatively, juries are specifically prohibited from revealing their reasoning process to anyone. Judges do their jobs for years, perhaps a whole career - to prohibit them from consuming media is a) unworkable and b) a serious impediment on their lifestyle. Juries are empaneled for weeks or months - such sacrifices are more reasonable. Judges are (supposedly) trained and impartial professionals who are more readily able to make the distinction between evidence and news. Newsworthy cases are relatively rare