The State of Missouri alleges that the appellant, Wellington, committed two murders in Kansas City and he is charged with murder in the first degree. The appellant was arrested in London on a provisional warrant. The United States requested his extradition. The prosecutor in Missouri gave an undertaking that he would not seek the death penalty. Some time was then taken up with an unsuccessful challenge to the committal by judicial review but the Home Secretary later notified the appe ...
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The appellant faced two charges of murder in Missouri, for which the mandatory penalty was imprisonment for life without eligibility for probation or parole or release, except by the act of the Governor. He challenged the decision to order his extradition on the basis that it breached his rights under ECHR 1950 art.3, arguing that a sentence of life imprisonment without eligibility for parole constituted inhuman or degrading punishment. HELD: A complaint under art.3 could not be made simply beca ...
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The imposition of a life sentence would not necessarily infringe Art.3. While an irreducible life sentence might raise an issue under Art.3 but would not necessarily infringe it, a life sentence that was not irreducible would not even raise an issue. Moreover, the bar for what counted as irreducible was set high; power to release someone from a life would mean the sentence was not irreducible. The test of what constituted inhuman or degrading punishment within the meaning of the Euro ...
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Mr Caldarelli challenges a decision of the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court upholding an order that he be surrendered pursuant to a European arrest warrant (EAW) issued by the Court of Naples. He complains that the warrant is bad because it seeks his surrender as an accused person and not (as he claims to be) a convicted person. The certified question is: “Where a fugitive has been convicted and sentenced in his absence in the requesting state, but the conviction and sentence are neit ...
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The appellant is a 42 year old British citizen. In October 2004 the US government requested his extradition to the US alleging that between February 2001 and March 2002 he had gained unauthorised access to 97 US Government computers from his home computer in London. In May 2006, District Judge Evans sent the appellant’s case to the Secretary of State to decide whether the appellant should be extradited and in July 2006 the Secretary of State ordered the appellant’s extr ...
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The appellant, whose extradition was sought by the respondent state, argued that the disparity between the sentence proposed under plea-bargaining and that which he would receive on conviction was disproportionate, subjected him to impermissible pressure to surrender his legal rights and as such amounted to an abuse of process. HELD: Whilst the disparity between the sentences indicated was very marked, in one sense all discounts for pleas of guilty could be said to subject the defendant to press ...
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The appellant appealed the findings of the Courts below that the warrant seeking his return might properly be characterised as an ‘accusation warrant’ for the purposes of the Extradition Act 2003, despite his having been ‘convicted’. HEL:D: Providing as they did for international co-operation between states with different procedural regimes, the Framework Decision and the 2003 Act could not be interpreted on the assumption that procedures which obtained findings of guilt ...
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