What is the longest known time between the commission of an offence and conviction in English legal history? In England &amp; Wales, the former Labour peer Lord Ahmed was recently jailed for sexual offences he was convicted of dating from the early 1970s. This 50+ year gap seems quite long, although obviously for serious sexual offences there is no limitation on prosecution. What is the longest known time between the commission of an offence and the conviction of the perpetrator in England &amp; Wales ? Is Lord Ahmed's the longest?
At least 56 years Anthony Sawoniuk was convicted in 1999 of 2 murders committed while he was a member of the SS. I cannot find the exact date of the offenses but they were before he deserted in November 1944. There may be longer ones but on seeing your question, Nazi war crimes popped into my head as something easy to check. If the actual answer is some obscure crime from the 19th century, I don’t know how you’d find it.
Basically, it is up to the court. The relevant law is the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE). You don't give much in the way of specifics, but it sounds like you confessed something to the police at the side of the road immediately after the accident, and now wish to dispute that confession. If you are taken to court and the police want to introduce your confession as evidence then you (through your lawyer) can ask the court to rule it out. You may be able to do so on a number of grounds. Was the confession properly recorded at the time? Were you treated in an oppressive manner, such that you felt you had to say what the police wanted to hear. Did you think you might get more favourable treatment if you said what the police wanted? For instance, did you think you might be allowed to go home once they were satisfied? Were you given a proper rest, or were you in a mental state that might cause you to say things without understanding the consequences (it sounds like this would be your main argument, but consider the others too). [Edit] If you needed medical treatment that would also be relevant. Were you properly cautioned (that speech beginning "You do not have to say anything...") before the police asked you questions. If you think you may be facing criminal charges then you should get yourself a lawyer sooner rather than later. A lawyer will know all about this and be able to navigate the relevant legal processes on your behalf. A bit of background: back in the 1970s the police frequently attributed incriminating statements to suspects when arrested, such as "Its a fair cop, guv", or "Who ratted on us?". The rules in PACE were made to stop such "verballing".
Its worth actually reading through the law again - they're meant for different categories of drugs - and its worth looking up the relevant laws as a whole. You can't cherrypick which law you charge them under in this case. It depends on what the suspect has in posession, and if you have more serious charges, they're probably going to be preferred unless the prosecution decides to throw the entire library at the suspect and charge them with everything they can, or a larger subset. A quick search on the internet - which shouldn't be taken as legal advice, brings up this link. Category 1 drugs are addictive and seen as therapeutically useless - you shouldn't have any realistic reason to have quantities of it in your posession. Category 3 is drugs with therapeutic use - stuff like codine. You could get a prescription for that, but there's potential for abuse. They're aimed at different classes of drugs - and the confusion is over a misinterpretation of what the law is about. As an aside, this is why you need to usually read more than just a specific statute or law to get what its about.
No. This isn't possible. A judge can only sentence someone after they have pleaded guilty or been found to be guilty, following an indictment or criminal complaint, and multiple advisements of rights.
In the UK this is just called &quot;an appeal for the suspect to come forward.&quot; The UK police are not allowed to lie or mislead as suggested in the OP, and any reduction in punishment is in the hands of the courts when passing sentence (unlike some other jurisdictions, I believe).
Could the acceptance of the pardon then have any bearing on the case in the other jurisdiction? Possibly, but not much. There is very, very little case law on this point since: (1) pardons are rare (especially federal ones), (2) people who are pardoned generally do so because everyone in the criminal justice process in the prior case agrees that the person is reformed and they are usually correct, (3) the statute of limitations has often run on a new prosecution, and (4) many cases where these issues arise, are probably not appealed (either because the neither parties attempts to, or because a defendant is acquitted and there is no appeal), but an appeal is necessary to give rise to binding precedents. Can the admission of guilt be used in the new case? The criminal collateral estoppel effects of a pardon flow from the adjudication on the merits which is vacated. Also, comity between sovereigns and public policy mitigate such a rule. The pardon power would not be very interesting if it routinely resulted in a new prosecution that was conducted on a summary basis via a preclusion doctrine such as collateral estoppel. In many cases, the statute of limitations will have run on the original crime or there will be no parallel state law crime, but this is not always the case. Also, I would disagree with the statement that a pardon always implies an admission of guilt to the crime for which a pardon was granted, even though that statement is often used rhetorically. For example, one important use of the pardon power is to commute the sentence of someone who asserts that they are factually innocent but have been convicted of a crime, potentially in a manner that is not subject to further judicial review, and treating that as an admission of guilt doesn't make sense. As the Wikipedia entry on Burdick notes in the pertinent part: Legal scholars have questioned whether that portion of Burdick [ed. about admission of guilt] is meaningful or merely dicta. President Ford made reference to the Burdick decision in his post-pardon written statement furnished to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives on October 17, 1974. However, said reference related only to the portion of Burdick that supported the proposition that the Constitution does not limit the pardon power to cases of convicted offenders or even indicted offenders. I would read this as dicta, as this portion of the holding was not necessary for the court to reach its conclusion and the fact pattern in Burdick was a typical fact pattern where guilt was not disputed. It didn't raise the concerns present when a pardon is requested based upon a claim of innocence, and granted following a conviction. Instead, the holding of Burdick was that there was no pardon because the pardon was rejected (in a manner very similar to a common law disclaimer of a gift), so its holding didn't need to reach the effect of a pardon that is accepted to resolve the case. Can it be used as &quot;reasonable cause&quot; for various actions? This is a bit too vague to know what you are getting at. I suppose that a pardon could constitute reasonable cause for some things favorable to a defendant who is pardoned (e.g., potentially in a motion seeking to reopen a termination of parental rights entered on the basis of the conviction). I suppose it could also be used in a manner potentially unfavorable to a defendant (e.g. showing a pattern of past conduct that demonstrates modus operandi in connection with a prosecution for a new crime). I don't think it could be used as grounds to deny an occupational or business license for bad character. Still, without more clear context it is harder to know what you are really looking for in this regard and I'm not confident that my examples address that. Does the defendant lose their right to refuse to testify in the new case? I haven't reviewed the case law, but my intuition is that if it has never been waived before, it wouldn't be waived by the pardon, but that if it was waived in a previous proceeding resulting in a conviction that was then pardoned, that the prior sworn testimony might be admissible evidence in the new action since it is not hearsay and isn't itself evidence of a prior conviction. The context of the prior testimony might have to be concealed from the jury. As noted by @Putvi, the defendant could not claim risk of conviction for the federal crime as a ground for invoking the 5th Amendment if a pardon is accepted (something that is implied in Burdick), but if there was an overlapping state law crime, risk of conviction for the state crime could constitute a grounds upon which to invoke the 5th Amendment. Burdick does stand for the proposition that a pardon not solicited by the defendant, that is rejected, cannot provide a basis for removing the 5th Amendment protection with respect to a risk of conviction for federal crime. I would also be inclined to think that matters disclosed in an application for a pardon might be admissible evidence as a non-hearsay statement of a party-opponent, if the statement was stripped of the pardon application context (which would be unduly prejudicial since it would imply a prior conviction which otherwise wouldn't be admissible).
Yes Deciding a case on a basis the parties have not raised is a denial of natural justice (or procedural fairness) and invalid. The reason is very simple, the parties have not had the opportunity to produce evidence or make submissions about C or D that might have changed the judge’s mind about them. Notwithstanding, to successfully appeal, the aggrieved party must show there were arguments that could have been raised which could reasonably have altered the outcome. That said, it’s the judge’s courtroom and they can say “That’s interesting but what about C and D?” and then the parties can make submissions about them. They do have to be circumspect and make sure that they do not become one party’s advocate - one party might be well aware of C and D and don’t want them brought up because they damage their case and they are hoping the other party misses that - and then the bloody judge come charging in with his bloody duty to wider interests of justice. Non-judicial decision makers like arbitrators, adjudicators and other tribunals need to be even more circumspect because they generally don’t have a duty to anyone but the parties. Unlike in civil law systems, the role of the judge is to decide the dispute between the parties as a referee, not to determine some objective”truth” as an investigator. To keep things simple: if the plaintiff contends that the light was red and the defendant contends the light was green then, assuming there is no evidence opening the possibility, it is not open to the judge to find that the light was amber. Similarly, if the parties agree that red means go and green means stop, it is not the judge's role to tell the parties they are wrong (I'm sure questions would be asked but if the parties are adamant ...): since there is no dispute over this issue the judge would be wrong to agitate one. Now, a judge is free to apply the law that was argued as a whole - if arguments centred on Section 14 of the Relevant Act 1875 but Section 15 is applicable and germane the judge is not wrong for applying Section 15. However, they are on shakier ground if the bring in Other Slightly Relevant Act 1956.
I skimmed the text of the act and didn't see anything about expiration, so that suggests that it doesn't expire. Normally such a provision would be prominent near the beginning or end.