Let’s say you’re in a foreign country (maybe Thailand) and want to go to the US. You don’t have any money or even a passport, so you claim you commited some huge unsolved murder in the USA. The government gets wind of it and expedites you back to the US to stand trial. Then, since it’s obvious you didn’t commit the crime cause you have proof you were somewhere else at the time and couldn’t have done it, you’re found not guilty.
What happens then? Do you get to stay in the US? Does our country foot the bill to send you back?
If you bore false testimony in the US you’d probably be charged with obstruction of justice. I don’t see how you could be charged with it if your statements were not in the US but IANAL. But the other country might be able to charge you with it, especially if it’s a crime under that country’s laws as well, and they’d have the pleasure of extraditing you, details of which would be left up to the two countries involved and their extradition treaties.
I guess if you always wanted to take a tour of the world’s prisons…
Another question would be if you were a US citizen living in Thailand, the US picks you up for a crime and you tell them you had nothing to do with the crime. They bring you back to the states, run you through a trial and find you not guilty. Do they foot the bill to send you back or just kick you out of the court house and say “good luck”?
You don’t really have to go through the extradiction process. You could just go to the American Embassy in Bangkok and surrender yourself directly to them. That way you would already be under American custody and could be directly transported back to the United States.
That said, I think the hole in the plan is that whatever legal authority is responsible in the jurisdiction you’re claiming to have committed a crime in is going to want to have some kind of evidence that you actually committed the crime before it seeks to have you brought back.
The other snag is that if you’re not an American citizen to begin with you will still not have any legal right to reside in the United States after your trial is completed and you are exonerated. You will simply be deported back to your country of origin.
