I’m looking for examples of countries that have an extradition treaty with the United States but in which a person accused of a serious crime can not opt for a trial by jury.
Some of the European countries with legal systems based on the Napoleonic code, perhaps?
Nope. The napoleonic code involves a trial by jury for serious crimes (and for serious crimes only)
Actually, under the Napoleonic code (at least in France), the trial by jury is mandatory for serious crimes. You can’t opt out, nor you can plead guilty.
[clairbscur**, are the jurors in France the same as in the U.S. (a group of laypersons), or are they more like the typical Italian “jury,” which is made up of both laypersons and judges?
–Cliffy
Cliffy,
Same than in Italy : the jury is a mix . 3 judges and 9 lay persons who decide on both the culpability and sentence at 9/12 majority.
Sweden.
No jury trials, apparantly. A number of “advisors” discuss the merits of the case with the judge.
They have some sort of extradition agreement with the states, but it may be a little strained, there is a Swede who has been in prison there for years and they won’t let her over because 1. they think Swedish prison time = easy time (I agree to an extent) and 2. she would have been let out long ago by this stage in Sweden (which I also agree with, but this is a whole nother thread)
Scotland.
Here the prosecutor decides if you face a jury or not.
If you do, the penalties are higher - 3 years before a Sheriff (a Scottish judge - not a police officer!) sitting with a jury, unlimited before the High Court.
If it’s a serious crime, then it will automatically be before a jury, and we are not going to extradite for something that isn’t serious, so Scotland may not quite fit your definition. It is correct to say we do not have the right to trial by jury though.
How 'bout Mexico? Other latin American countries? Asian?
I’m not so much interested in places that will extradite their citizens to face trial in the U.S. but the reverse: countries that I, as an American, could be be extradited to. The real story behind my question is this:
Recently, I found myself once again in the middle of the jury selection process. Like each time before, the clerk gave a little pep talk in which he told us that the right to trial by jury was absolutely essential to the administration of justice (and that I, as a potential juror, was therefore vital as well).
Now I happen to think that being able to have a jury trial is a good thing, but I’m not completely convinced that justice couldn’t be well-served without the jury system. So I wanted to ask the clerk, “If juries really are necessary for a fair justice system, why does the United States allow its citizens to be extradited to [Country X] where they would have no possibility of receiving a trial by jury?”
Of course I didn’t say anything. As this story makes clear, being a smartass about jury duty is not a good idea: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=519&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20020827/ap_on_re_us/jury_duty_6
>> “If juries really are necessary for a fair justice system, why does the United States allow its citizens to be extradited to [Country X] where they would have no possibility of receiving a trial by jury?”
I do not think that is true at all as the US has extradition treaties with many countries that do not use juries.
Hmmm…Countries tend not to extradite their own citizens. They usually have juridiction for crimes commited by them, regardless where the crime has been commited, and who was the victim. So, I somewhat doubt you could be extradited at all, jury or not. Am I speaking out of my arse? Anyone?
This varies. Some countries prefer not to extradite their own citizens but to try them at home for crimes of which they have been accused abroad - with the co-operation, naturally, of the foreign prosecuting authorities. In practice this kind of arrangement can work quite well where both countries involve use this system, and are accustomed to it, and are “geared up” to mount a prosecution in another country.
Other countries make no distinction between citizens and non-citizens as regards extradition, and rarely if ever mount prosecutions of their own citizens for crimes committed abroad.
Most countries in the Anglo-American legal tradition are in the latter group, and will extradite their own citizens as readily (or not) as they will extradite foreign nationals.
Sailor
I think Chukhung would like you to name some of those countries. I’d be interested, too.
I believe I’ve found one example of a country that fits my criteria:
The Netherlands
According to this article in The Guardian about juries in Europe at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,674655,00.html
and according to a paper I found at the United Nations Crime and Justice Information Network at http://www.uncjin.org/Laws/extradit/usa.pdf an extradition treaty between the United States and The Netherlands has been in effect since 1983.
UDS, I already mentioned most Latin American countries. Do they use juries? I don’t think so but I am not sure.
Eh…that’s what I said, isn’t it? As a US citizen, you could be extradited to Scotland, where there is no right to trial by jury.
But since we would only extradite for serious cases and all serious cases go before a jury at the prosecutor’s instance…
Yes. I was confused and did not fully grasp that “extradite” can be used to mean both “to deliver up to extradition” and “to obtain the extradition of”.
In any event, I believe The Netherlands is a better example for my purposes in that not only does a defendant before a Dutch court not have the right to a trial by jury, there are, apparently, no juries at all in the Dutch criminal justice system.