It’s a British base, just with Americans there.
She hasn’t actually been charged with anything yet. Why are you so sure about whether it was a momentary lapse or not? Do you have details of the accident not in the BBC articles?
Thanks, Ravenman.
I’ve got a pretty safe (U.S.) driving record and I visit the UK all the time, but I stopped driving there because I found myself easily driving 100+ ft down the wrong side of the road even after years of off-and-on practice. It usually happens on turns, I just instinctively turn into the wrong lane (that’s the “momentary lapse”) but everything seems “ok and natural” as I drive along until I see something (like other cars) and think “oh shit”. I’m lucky nothing worse happened.
“Simple negligence” is a term of art, meaning garden-variety negligence as opposed to gross negligence. So when I say “this was more than simple negligence” I’m not force fitting the circumstances to the word; I’m referring to a different standard.
Fair enough. I may have made an unwarranted assumption about how far she went on the wrong side.
So if Looten Plunder, Doctor Blight and Duke Nukem dispose of toxic waste by pouring it into a river, and they don’t intend to kill anyone, should they escape jail time? If I go to a nightclub with a loaded firearm in my sweatpants holster and it goes off, should I escape jail time? If a diplomat’s wife gets drunk and runs over an old lady, should she escape jail time?
Press got a look at a “secret” paper with talking points for Trump on why he won’t waive immunity. What an asshole.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/3927941002
On the bright side, this is helping to show the British public what horseshit Boris Johnson’s claims about how Brexit will mean closer ties between the US and UK are.
You’d have to be really not very bright to think closer ties meant disregarding diplomatic immunity.
Surely the point is that no-one can come to any conclusion about any of these questions if she’s not actually here to give her explanation.
Ooooh, witty. And yet totally uninformed.
If Russia can do it, surely the US can
We had an episode several years ago in Ottawa where a Russian diplomat was drunk driving. His car mounted the curb and killed a woman and injured her companion, who were just out for a walk.
Russia asserted diplomatic immunity, so the Canadian courts had no jurisdiction. Canada revoked his diplomatic status and he got shipped home to Russia.
As soon as he got home, the Russian government fired him and then charged him with involuntary manslaughter under Russian law. The Russian authorities cooperated with the Canadian police to have the evidence gathered in Canada used at the trial in the Russian courts.
And he was convicted, got sentenced, and was last heard of at a labour camp near Murmansk.
So it can be done.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/former-russian-diplomat-guilty-of-involuntary-manslaughter-1.313443
No, I don’t either. It was (mostly) a joke.
I wouldn’t be quite so sure. Russian criminal law is not federalized; the country has a single criminal code.
Well, Johnson and Trump…
True, but the US has a code of military justice that covers individuals in the US military, even though criminal law is mainly state jurisdiction.
Why not a federal law giving the federal courts jurisdiction to try cases of US diplomats for crimes alleged to be committed abroad, using a US equivalent to the alleged foreign offence?
But which US equivalent?
How does it work when a US military person is charged with committing an offence in a foreign country and tried under US law under a visiting forces agreement?
The UCMJ is a criminal code, so they are prosecuted under that.
Then why not have a similar code for diplomats? Or just try them in Federal Court under the relevant offence under the USMCJ?
There’s no reason we couldn’t. I’m just saying I don’t think we have such a code, and the UCMJ applies to uniformed military personnel only. We could create one, but it would cause some serious ex post facto problems in this case.
A guy I knew was caught doing drugs by the US Army in Turkey. He was tried and imprisoned by the Turks.