I recently saw a good A&E documentary on Ira Einhorn. The short story is that he’s a fugitive convicted in absentia of murder by a Philadelphia court. He lives in France but the French government objects to the in absentia conviction and won’t extradite.
Anyway, here’s my hypothetical question. Let’s say a sympathetic billionare private citizen-slash-vigilante decides to hire some thugs to go up to Einhorn’s house in France, bonk him on the head late at night, tie him up, pack him in a private jet, fly him across the pond and put him in a wicker basket on the doorstep of a Philly police precinct.
Now I know the premise is absurd and far from fool-proof. And I’m not endorsing assault, kidnapping or any kind of vigilantism. Just say no. But can the US then try him and convict him and say “What a horrible kindapping that had nothing to do with the US Government. Tell ya what France, we’ll give him back when his life sentence is up”? Or do we have to play nice and return him to France?
What if instead the guy got drunk one day and wandered into the American Embassy?
“The world ends when I die. And as far as I’m concerned, the rest of the universe might as well call it a day too.” – Matt Groening
Although I have no idea what the actual law on this would be, my best WAG is that the government doesn’t give a flying rat’s ass how you end up in the courtroom after coming from a different country. The fact that you are there is good enough for them. I seem to remember our armed forces removing a certain Latin American dictator (I’m drawing a complete blank on the guy’s name…boy is this embarassing) and carting him back to the US to stand trial for drug trafficking. Courts didn’t care we violated his due process, just that he was standing before the court for trial. But, I don’t know how much France would like it if we sent the Marines in to get this fella out.
Jeremy…
I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine - Kurt Vonnegut
Yea I caught that one second too late but was too lazy to enter a correction. Thanks for fixing my typo. Seems that saving myself a few seconds by not posting the correction forced me to compose a significantly longer thank-you note. Hmmm… time saver?, next time I promise, I will clean up my own mess.