Should the Ontario Crown Prosectur apply to extradite the two US bounty hunters?

Great Debates
1

According to this story in the Globe & Mail, two US bounty hunters came to Ontario, grabbed a guy who was wanted in the US for a drug possession charge, and forcibly took him back across the border.

The Crown prosecutor in the area is apparently mulling over whether to apply to have the two bounty hunters extradited to Canada to face charges, likely kidnapping. Bounty hunting, you see, does not exist in Canada, and in any event a US law authorising a US bounty hunter to seize an individual would not apply here.

So, what do Dopers think the Crown should do? Should he ask the feds to start extradition, on the basis that we don’t want to encourage kidnapping by bounty hunters? Should he decide that it’s not worth the trouble and let it go? (And let’s not worry for a moment about the double criminality requirement for extradition - kidnapping is a crime in both, but there may be an issue about whether on the facts their actions would amount to kidnapping if done in the U.S.)

My immediate reaction is that he should apply for extradition. I don’t want US law officials coming into Canada and operating against the laws of Canada, any more than I would want Mounties going south and operating in the US without regard for the laws of the US. We have treaties to provided mutual legal assistance for cross-border criminals - let’s use those properly.

2

Just from the info I have heard, if I was the CP I’d push for extradition. However if there are some parts of the case we don’t know that would suggest the conviction might not be practically attainable, or the extradition messy then I might just let it drop. There’s also the facts that some higher-ups might have to weigh in on the case (suggesting I not prosecute to avoid messy diplomatic issues.) At some point as a public official you have to weigh in the fact that your prosecution uses up public resources, and in the scheme of things two guys who pulled a U.S. bail-jumper back to the U.S. aren’t really a serious threat to the people of Canada anymore.

Anyways, a U.S. bounty hunter was actually tried and convicted in Canada for this type of thing not too long ago. The U.S. basically is supportive of a bounty hunter’s right to pursue the bail jumper (bounty hunters have basically unlimited power in response to their targets) but won’t lift a finger to help a bounty hunter that has crossed into Mexico or Canada.

Also, bounty hunters are not law enforcement officials of the United States.

The bounty hunters in question did not grab the man because he was wanted on drug possession charges. Bounty hunters work in the employ of bail bondsmen. Bail bondsmen pay the bail of people who are standing trial, in exchange for this bail the bondsman is given a fee. When the bondsman pays the bail, the accused is released into his custody. And if the accused flees, then the bondsman loses the entire amount of the bail.

In the U.S. a SCOTUS case basically held that bail bondsmen have extraordinary rights to pursue and apprehend people released into their custody if the accused has fled from prosecution. Bail bondsman employ bounty hunters because often law enforcement is fairly lax in pursuing bail-jumpers, especially when the person jumped bail after being accused of a fairly minor crime. So often times the bounty hunter is the only practical way to get the bond back.

The bail bondsman has no real impetus to make use of bounty hunters versus making use of law enforcement. Once it was found out this guy was living in Ontario the U.S. could have had him extradited and then the bondsman would get his money back. The bounty hunters, however, do have a reason to be the ones to bring him in, because otherwise they don’t collect a pay check.

3

They should extradite him just to make an example. It’s not a good thing for American citizens to be wandering through other countries kidnapping people. If we want someone back who has fled to another country we should go through legal channels.

4

Again I would remind you this isn’t the case of “us” wanting someone back. The U.S. government doesn’t control the bounty hunter’s, doesn’t pay them, and doesn’t even license them. The bail bondsman is the one who sent his hunters into Canada, not “us.”

5

Thanks for pointing this out, Northern Piper. Come Monday, I’ll track down Crown Peter Barnes’ contact info and toss my two cents his way (not that it would make any difference). I take a very dim view to foreigners kidnapping people and then fleeing out of the country with them. The kidnappers should spend a long time in Kingston Pen.

6

Bounty hunters are criminals no better than the scum they hunt; if they crossed into Canadian territory, they’re little more than pirates to boot. What they deserve is to hang. I’ll settle for imprisonment owing to my philosophical opposition to capital punishment.

I’d demand extradition.

7

Can someone tell the CUA that this applies to them too? :smiley:

8

Of course that should be the CIA! :smack:

Memo to self: “Preview even short posts”

9

To me, it seems like extradition is the way to go. RickJay and Muffin pretty much summed up what I wanted to say.

10

Um, no. Bounty hunters are criminals when they commit a crime, which they did by leaving the United States and committing a kidnapping. Bounty hunting, however by its nature, is not criminal in the United States.

So you’re just completely wrong about that one.

When a bail bondsman pays someone’s bail, that person is released into the bondsman’s custody. And that person remains free at the bondsman’s will (a bail bondsman has the authority to send his customers back to jail if he decides they’ve become a flight risk.) And if that person flees jurisdiction and prosecution, then the bondsman is losing the money that he put up for bail, and the United States Supreme Court has ruled that bondsmen have the right to take extraordinary measures to get the fugitive back into their custody so that they can retrieve the bail.

Also, pirates are traditionally people that prey on shipping lanes, not people that cross international borders to kidnap someone.

11

Damn straight! I for one am sick and tired of these rogue Canadian urologists violating our sovereignty and our national borders!

12

We’re talking about about activities in Canada. Bounty hunting is illegal in Canada. Rick Jay’s comment strikes me as an accurate summary of the law here. Whether it’s legal in the U.S. is irelevant to the discussion of whether the Crown Prosecutor should conclude that a crime was committed in Canada.

13

I don’t see much debate, here. The U.S. and Canada have a signed agreement that cross-border bounty hunting is a bad idea. If the prosecutor has the budget, let him drag 'em back.

(Of course, reading the whole story, I suspect that one could make the argument that they have already been punished. Roberts is clearly an idiot and doing some more time might get him to realize it. (I love the fact that the U.S. jailed him for trying to bring someone across the border without authorization.) Bailey seems to have been just along for the ride, so I’m not sure how much point there would be in spending the money to haul him back and try him and incarcerate him.)

RickJay, did you read the article? I fully advocate Canada exercising its sovereignty if the prosecutor chooses to seek extradition, but in this case we appear to be talking about brother Darrell and his other brother Darrell. Do you really think we ought to inflict on the citizens of Ontario the cost of supporting these two morons for the rest of their lives?

14

And there are countries where murder and rape are de facto legal in many situations. That doesn’t change the fact that murderers and rapists are criminal scum. The fact that the United States has a hole in its law doesn’t make a bounty hunter any less a slimeball.

But in any event, the issue here is the law in CANADA, which rightfully states that the men were not engaged in “bounty hunting,” they were engaged in kidnapping, a criminal offense.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s judgments have no force of law in Canada. Had the bounty hunters stayed in the United States they could have continued their chosen profession of leeching off the dregs of society. Once they crossed into Canada they were rightfully treated as the common gangsters they are.

As for bail bondsmen, to hell with them, too. If you choose to lie with dogs, don’t be shocked if you rise with fleas.

Hence my statement “little more than pirates,” not “they are in fact pirates.”

This is an important case because throwing the book at these thugs will, hopefully, have a chilling effect on so-called “bounty hunters” to keep them out of our country. Setting an example could prevent future incidents of this nature.

It might even save lives; after all, had their quarry, Kenny Weckworth, had a gun, he would have been quite within his rights to shoot them when they tried to kidnap him, as would any other person attacked by foreign “bounty hunters” in Canada.

15

Ah, but it’s the Canadian feds who pay for extradition. He has to persuade them to spend the dough. Just one of the factors he has to consider.

You’re obviously not familiar with our kinder, gentler system. Rest of their lives? who said anything about putting them away like that? we just want to let them know that we’re really, really, irritated, in a nice Canadian way. Once we make that point, they’d be out in no time. :slight_smile:

16

Well RickJay desired execution but said he’d settle for imprisonment. Generally the alternative to capital punishment is life imprisonment.

17

Wow, throw a strawman out there, RickJay.

You made the unqualified statement that bounty hunters are criminals. I said that bounty hunters just by virtue of being bounty hunters were not criminals. And then I made it perfectly clear that if a bounty hunter crosses into Canada and plies his trade, then he IS a criminal.

I’m guessing everyone just completely misread my post? I never claimed bounty hunting was illegal in Canada, I just said that bounty hunting, isn’t by it’s nature illegal. I did say it was illegal when bounty hunters started bounty hunting outside the jurisdiction in which they are allowed to bounty hunt.

To recap you said:

You didn’t make it clear you were saying “when they cross into other countries” you just made the unqualified statement that bounty hunters are criminals. That isn’t true. Some bounty hunters are criminals, a bounty hunter that crosses international borders and plies his trade is a criminal. But you didn’t qualify your statement and I pointed out the glaring inaccuracy.

I know everyone started salivating the second I posted about U.S. law, because you wanted to imagine that I was saying U.S. law applies in Canada, thus allowing you to come to the defense of Canada’s sovereignty against a mean, imperialist American. But all of you are arguing against claims I never made. I was explaining why bounty hunting isn’t illegal in jurisdictions where bounty hunting is a legal enterprise. And there’s nothing in my posts that should have lead you to believe I was saying bounty hunting was legal in Canada, especially since I made a statement directly to the contrary in the post that all of you are quoting.

Anyways, to pound this home, I said:

You can’t bounty hunt in Canada, so there’s no such thing as bounty hunting there, it’s plain ole kindapping, and that is precisely what I said.

Saying bounty hunting is illegal in Canada is actually somewhat disingenuous. It plain doesn’t exist in Canada. Unless you allow bounty hunting, then what it is actualy is, is kidnapping. So it doesn’t make sense to me for RickJay to make the statement that bounty hunters are criminals, because they weren’t acting as bounty hunters when they grabbed this guy, they were acting as kidnappers.

And his sweeping generalization about thousands of people he’s never met, ie calling bounty hunters scum, is just an unsupportable and derogatory statement that in my opinion has no place in Great Debates.

18

Criminal Code of Canada: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/

The kidnappers knew or should have known the law, given that their job was bounty hunting.

The kidnappers in fact were informed of the law by the victim.

The kidnappers fell well within s.279(1)(a).

The kidnappers fell well within s.279(1)(b).

The kidnappers used handcuffs to intimidate (and confine) the victim.

The charges in the USA were negligible, so the kidnappers’ intent was mercenary.

The courts in the USA receive into custody and try such kidnap victims, and in fact did receive into custody and try this kidnap victim, rather than immediately returning them, and the kidnappers knew or should have known this.

A strong signal needs to be sent to the American bounty hunter community so as to discourage further kidnappings.

I’d give the tag along something above the minimum for the helper, perhaps 6 years, and double it up for the lead guy, perhaps 12 years.

With good behavior, buddy could be out in a 2 and bubba could be out in 4.

But then I’m one of those bleeding heart liberals. I can understand why someone would want them put away for life, and quite frankly, it wouldn’t bother me a bit if they were.

19

[hijack] On Thursday afternoon. I popped into Superior Court to ask a judge to make an order on consent in an estate matter, following a long day of negotiations.

As I sat down behind the bar, the court was hearing some sort of criminal matter, to which I paid no attention. The judge, however, looked at me, and said in his stentorian voice: “Hello Mr. Muffin,” which caused the regional senior crown attorney to turn around, walk up to me, grab my shoulder, and say, “Mr. Muffin!”

Fearing imminent arrest, I squeaked, “What did I do?” The judge and the crown struggled to keep straight faces, upon realizing that I had no idea, but a great deal of concern, as to why they were so interested in me.

It turned out that the criminal in the dock had just been picked up after jumping bail several years earlier, and was telling the judge that he had been on the lamb because of his lawyer (Mr. Muffin). When I wandered in, the judge and the crown thought that I was there to represent the fellow, so they were rather amused at my reaction. [/hijack]

20

As pointed out above, that assertion is irrelevant as bounty hunting does not exist in Canada.

The court in the US jurisdiction was made aware of a pending charge against the kidnap victim. As that individual was present in that court’s jurisdiction, that court took cognizance of the charge.

Apparently the vast majority of the “American bounty hunter community” is already aware that their jurisdiction does not extend beyond the borders of the United States.

Or perhaps you could let the judge of the court of competent jurisdiction sentence the accused per the laws.