Johansen Prosecutors Appeal 251
kmitnick writes "Jon Johansen will be back in court, tried again in an appeals court, because Hollywood knows better than the Norwegian legal system." Norway's legal system is different than the U.S.; the government can appeal a loss in a criminal case.
Double Jeopardy (Score:4, Interesting)
Just imagine if special interest groups could put pressure on politicians to keep appealing cases that they lost. Scary.
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:5, Informative)
and btw, the maximum number of appeals in norway is 2 before the case reaches the supreme court (and the supreme court won't take most cases)
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:2)
As have been said previously, it's not really a new prosecution, but rather the continuation of the one that was started by the lower courts. The state cannot start over again at the lower court, once the final verdict has been reached.
There are actually only two posibilities for apeal, and that's it. Combined with the fact that as a citizen you (typically) don't pay your legal costs in a criminal proceedings, and hence can get any lawyer that's interested in your case to represent you, I'd much rather be tried in Sweden, than in the U.S. The words "pro bono" does not exist here, you are not at its mercy.
"Double jeopardy" or not.
P.S. And yes, we're quite familiar with the abuses of kings and tyrants in Norway and Sweden, that's why we had wars and revolutions to strip them of their power. Not that they were ever as bad, we never really had a feudal period.
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:2)
How so?
As stated, just view it as one long(er) trial, with intermediate verdicts that may or may not hold and that's it.
And it's not a whole new trial in higher court (if it's not sent down), it's a review of the facts of the lower court's trial.
So, the case will be heard once, perhaps by as much as three seperate sets of judges, within a set time limit. Once the process is over, the government cannot prosecute a second time for the same crime. No double jeopardy. That you may have to apear for two courts (there are never arguments before the highest court) doesn't really change that.
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:2)
No, but like was said before the wait before the judgement is final is 3 weeks. It's not exactly like you're being strung along.
The proceedings end three weeks after the judge hits his gavel (not that he does, or has one in Sweden), not then and there.
Double jeopardy or not I seem to remember a certain Kevin Mitnick who was held for years pending a trial that never came. His entire case, apealed or not could not have taken even a fraction of that time under Swedish/Norwegian law. Single double or tripple jeopardy notwithstanding.
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:2)
It is telling that the revolution began in Massachusetts, where Gov. Hutchison had treated his royal appointment as a more or less a license for dictatorial rule, revolving around themes such as seizure of property without due process and imprisonment without trial, both of which are quite unlawful under the common law.
So saying that it was unnecessary to kill or die for these things because Englishment already had these rights is bunk. Just because the law says you have a right doesn't mean any particular instance of government will respect its laws.
Re:Pardon me, Mr. Fucktar (Score:2)
>government appeals, I'm free to go?
The same government cannot appeal. The Federal and State governments are considered separate, and can both try you if the crime was committed in both State and Federal jurisdictions. That may or may not be reasonable in your opinion, but it is an expression of the general will of the people, and it is a policy that could be changed if there were significant interest in changing it. (Never mind that the "will of the people" is expressed via apathy, instead of action).
>You have a fucked up legal system. Be man enough
>to admit it.
Every legal, political, social, and economic system in the world has issues, and no system is even close to perfect. There is a matter of observer bias when evaluating the US system.
More reports of problems, together with the enormous size of the systems (a huge Federal government, 50 State governments of various sizes and structures, and uncounted municipalities with their own legal systems), and a widespread prejudice which assumes the system is broken, all add up to "a fucked up legal system." This ignores the fact that, in general, the system works. There are certain enormous problems of course, and certain failings of the system are so outrageous as to be difficult to understand. But when the system works, which it does most of the time, it isn't newsworthy.
Nobody shouts from the rooftops about all the lawsuits that DIDN'T bankrupt the defendant, or about all the murders on death row that DID kill somebody.
Now, show me the country whose judicial system really works 100% of the time. Please choose only a country with a population of at least 100 million.
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:3, Informative)
No, not in Norway (or Sweden), because if the government decides to prosecute you they have to pay your legal costs. Not that you can force any lawyer of your choosing to represent you, there's no forced labour in Sweden, but if he's willing to take your case; you don't pay (or rather you pay a share, according to your income if you lose. If you win, you pay nothing).
That's why you in Sweden routinely see "ordinary" criminals in high profile cases, with high profile laywers (that are interested just because it's a high profile case). It's not as if said criminals could actually afford said lawyers.
Yepp, and if you win your apeal, you'll be roundly compensated by the state for the time you were held. This happens automatically by the state, without any lawsuits. But you can of course apeal the compensation by a lawsuit if you so desire.
Criminal prosecutions invoke important . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
As a prosecutor, I have no problem with the *general* lack of ability to appeal. There are limited circumstances in which we do get another bite, but it requires special circumstances. For me, trials are fun, but for a criminal defendant the uncertainty, the court appearances, and the stigma must be quite unpleasant. I don't think I'd like to be part of a process which just beats a defendant down with government appeals until he's all out of fight, money, or both.
With the resources available to us, we (the State) can usually convict the guilty if we do our jobs right. Sometimes they get away, but that's how our justice system is set up -- the Framers wanted to have a system where we risk a few guilty individuals going free, but we minimize the risk of convicting the innocent.
In France, I believe, there is no Miranda as we know it. The police can question a suspect for 48 hours with no right to counsel. It would make my job easier, but it doesn't make it a system that I want to live under or be a part of. If it works in Norway, that's their business, but we don't need to pick up all of the bad habits of the "Old Country," just because it works for them.
Re:Criminal prosecutions invoke important . . . (Score:2)
I hate to break it to you, but with another 2-6 years of Bush/Ashcroft, the US will no longer have the legal system you admire...
Double Jeopardy Possible in US (Score:5, Interesting)
e.g. You're prosecute for LS XYZ in Louisiana, then acquitted, you can then be prosecuted under US ABC in federal court. So yeah, you can experience double jeopardy in the good ole US of A.
Re:Double Jeopardy Possible in US (Score:5, Informative)
The doctrine at work is Dual Sovreignty. The State cannot try you twice for the same crime, another State cannot try you, but since the State and the Federal government both have sovreignty over you, then you are subject to separate prosecution by both governments. It was an open question but was settled by the Supreme Court in one of the first Federal prosecutions for liquor under prohibition, US v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377 (1922).
So you can thank the War on Some Drugs for it, but it goes back much further than most people seem to realize.
Re:Double Jeopardy Possible in US (Score:2)
Of course, this can only happen if the feds have jurisdiction over the crime, and federal jurisdiction is seriously curtailed (or at least it was...) by the constitution. For example, the only reason the feds were able to try Ernest Avants for murder after he was acquitted in Mississippi almost 40 years ago is because the murder took place in a national forest.
Re:Double Jeopardy (Score:2, Informative)
The constitution of the court vaies some too based on level. Not fully sure about Norway but in Sweden in the lowest level, you have a judge who is a lawyer, but also a few lay assessors (is that the name? found it in a dictionary) which are ordinary people, not lawyers (it is NOT a jury, they basically work at the court and have many cases). They are supposed to sort of represent the people, common sense and such. In the intermediate level all the judges (which make the decision) are lawyers.
So basically, either side can appeal (twice at most since that ends up in SUpreme Court but usually only once in most cases). But one can't start a new case on the same crime.
Fair Use? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fair Use? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fair Use? (Score:2)
Of course they've heard of fair use...they've been trying to ELIMINATE IT, via technology, for years.
If their case was stored as video on a DVD... (Score:2)
I mean, after all, an appeal is nothing more than a copy, isn't that right?
phew (Score:5, Funny)
All is right with the world.
Borgarting? (Score:5, Funny)
Prosecutors, on behalf of Hollywood studies, lodged an appeal in the Borgarting appeals court in Oslo
From a google search:
When someone bogarts a joint, he or she is holding onto the marijuana cigarette a bit longer than protocol deems polite
That is, being too damn greedy. How appropriate!
Re:Borgarting? (Score:3, Informative)
Was a very funny coincidence though
Kjella
When will they realize... (Score:5, Insightful)
The group estimates that piracy costs the U.S. motion picture industry $3.0 billion annually in lost sales.
When are the MPAA and the RIAA going to realize that while they may be losing money, is isn't close to that magnitude?
Even if we couldn't download the movies and music, we wouldn't be buying the CDs or DVDs in those numbers. Out of every 100 albums or movies you download (the general "you"), how many would you have bought if you couldn't download them? 10? 5? 1? If it's only 1, or 1% of the movies you download, then that $3.0 billion figure is only $30 million. Which is pennies in a multi-billion dollar industry.
It's amazing how the game isn't "How much money are we losing," but rather "How much money would we have lost in this incredibly unrealistic circumstance?"
Re:When will they realize... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:When will they realize... (Score:2)
Re:When will they realize... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's amazing how the game isn't "How much money are we losing," but rather "How much money would we have lost in this incredibly unrealistic circumstance?"
Oh, I'm pretty sure that they know that already.. my question is:
When are the MPAA and the RIAA going to figure out that they are "losing" money by not having the governments of the world mandate that thier citizens buy thier product? I'm serious, after all, the logic is the same. By not forcing every American to buy at least 10 albums a year, the RIAA "loses" $50 BILLION a year! And that is America alone. Can you believe that? That is a travesty! By not having every nation on earth mandate that every man woman and child buy at leat three albums a year, they are "losing" $360 BILLION and that's EVERY SINGLE YEAR! Add piracy on top of that and we are at $363 billion. Wow, that is almost as much as the defense budget for the entire US.
Re:When will they realize... (Score:3, Insightful)
When are the MPAA and the RIAA going to realize that while they may be losing money, is isn't close to that magnitude?
I think they're fully aware of that. It's all a matter of political spin-doctoring, kinda like Sun claiming that Mitnick costed them 3 billion dollars, or whatever they claimed. They just add up the cost of what people would have paid if they'd bought the downloaded files at retail prices, regardless of whether the person subsequently did that (and/or bought even more stuff later on). The big numbers sound more impressive to people who don't dig deeper to see where they came from and how unrealistic they are.
Remember, it's not the truth that matters here -- it's public opinion about the truth you give them!
Re:When will they realize... (Score:2)
Just to nitpick, Sun didn't necessarily want to claim that Mitnick cost them that astronomical amount. The prosecutors gave all the victims very explicit instructions for calculating the monetary "damages." Not only did they include potential lost sales, but also their entire development cost.
In both cases, the figures are so far removed from reality, that I feel it is a mar on our justice system. People that testify with such abjectly false numbers should be prosecuted for perjury, and lawyers that solicit this sort of perjury should be disbarred. It is out of hand.
Re:When will they realize... (Score:2)
While I believe the claim of $3.0 billion is pure conjecture,
I don't see the claim that it's wrong as anything but pure conjecture either.
The major cost of piracy isn't "lost" sales, but the fact that it forces them to lower their prices in order to compete with the pirate market.
If they could jack up the prices of movies to the same price as CDs, maybe they would make an extra $3.0 billion - who knows?
-- this is not a
Re:When will they realize... (Score:2)
The major cost of piracy isn't "lost" sales, but the fact that it forces them to lower their prices in order to compete with the pirate market.
Not at all. Pirate merchandise is either easily recognized as such or indistinguishable from the real thing. The second category accounts for most of the problems, and what it does is divert sales to whoever is running the operation. It doesn't compete, because there's no way for a customer to tell the two apart.
Now, kids trading music online - that doesn't even register.
Re:When will they realize... (Score:2)
I'm still wondering when they're going to be forced to deal with reality and answer the real question: How much do they stand to GAIN from decentralized digital distribution?
That they're putting up this much of a fight is very interesting. One would think that they would have learned something from the VCR fights in the 80s. It appears that they're (over?)confident that having lawyers and politicians in their pockets will be enough to overcome the desire for fair use among their worldwide customer-base.
--K.
Re:When will they realize... (Score:3, Insightful)
The group estimates that piracy costs the U.S. motion picture industry $3.0 billion annually in lost sales.
Followup calculation:
3 billion
number of people in U.S. about 300 million
Assuming an average cost of $10 per DVD, their calculation seems to assume an average drop of 1 DVD purchase per year per person.
Maybe it gets different when you start considering marketing groups and everything (I know I hardly ever pirate nor purchase any kind of video entertainment, so I'm probably not in the focus group) but I don't see how an average drop of 1 DVD purchase per person has any significance whatsoever, let alone from "piracy".
Finally, I don't see how this factoid (or any facts about piracy) could have any relevancy to Jon's case. Piracy is possibly without what Jon wrote, and the primary purpose of Jon's work was viewing DVDs -- a capability without which I can guarantee anyone that DVD sales will go down.
Shhhhh...Ashcroft will hear you.... (Score:5, Funny)
One little piece of idiocy I do NOT want this country to adopt.
BUT WE'RE BETTER ALREADY!! (Score:2, Flamebait)
hell they block off roads and search through peoples cars at will in some states (although this was fought and deemed unconstitutional in indiana, thanks to the aclu, i hear of it happening elsewhere) (what no seatbelt? that's a paddl'n)
who the fuck told these people that we need them to be our parents?
Apples and oranges (Score:2)
I agree that giving the procecution a general right to appeal in the current US system would be disasterous.
But in the Norvegian system it's actually not as bad as it sounds.
The entire system is very different from the US. (For example: in a criminal case, like this, the defendant don't pay lawyer fees, so Jon won't be ruined.)
The reason for the appeal is probably (besides trying to save the prosecutions face) that they have to push the case all the way to the supreme court to set a precendent either way. This is a "new" type of crime remember.
So, you can expect another appeal. And since it is a new crime the supreme court will probably accept it. (Otherwise rare.)
Sucks to be Jon, but probably not as much as it would have done if the same thing would have happended in the US, chances are he is getting off the hook, and even if he isn't it won't completely ruin his life.
It will, however be a setback for OSS development in Europe.
The whole case is rediculous if you ask me.
And the real idiocy here is that the kid was even arrested at all.
*sigh* (Score:2, Informative)
Hollywood could be helping me to achieve this.
Instead, they are continuing to spend taxpayers money to support their questionable business model, and defend a crappy piece of 'encryption', and completely ignoring customers like *me*.
I won't be buying another DVD until I have playback under linux working. Now if Hollywood want to get any more of my money sooner, perhaps they could help remove the hurdles.
Re:*sigh* (Score:2)
Re:*sigh* (Score:2)
Unfortunately, due to the legal matters surrounding DVD video on Linux, none of the above can distribute players with libdvdcss. I had to download that seperately, and now xine works beautifully.
IIRC, I flashed the drive to RPC-1 about a year ago when it was running W2k. DVD playback worked fine then :p
DVD playback worked under Windows because the DVD player was licensed with the DVDCCA ( I think that's the name of the organization ), who have decided not to allow licenses to any open-source dvd players. So Ogle, Xine, mplayer et all cannot distribute (legally) software capable of playing encrypted DVDs. The blame for all of this mess falls squarely on the DVDCCA.
Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:5, Informative)
------------
1999-05-21 NOR-1999-L-53741
Act (No. 30 of 1999) to strengthen the position of human rights in Norwegian law (Human Rights Act).
Contains six sections whereby the following international human rights instruments are given force of national law to the extent that they are considered as binding on Norway: the European Council's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, its Protocol of November 1950, its Protocols Nos. 4 (securing certain other rights and freedoms), 6 (abolition of death penalty), and 7 (furthering certain human rights and freedoms);
http://natlex.ilo.org/Scripts/natlexcgi.exe?lan
-----------
Protocol 7 from November 1950 is here:
http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/EN/Treaties/h
Article 4 - Right not to be tried or punished twice
So they adopted it into Norwegian law as part of human rights legislation.
Needs a lawyer to check it out, but what they're doing isn't just unethical and a breach of human rights. ITS NOT LEGAL EVEN IN NORWAY.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you still screaming "double jeopardy", don't forget (again, I'm talking about Swedish, not norwegian court practice) that if the defendant appeals, the higher court can not increase the punishment from the lower court. Only if the prosecution appeals as well (which they need a law-technical reason to do) can the appeals court ever increase the punishment.
Not so in Norway... (Score:4, Informative)
In short, it's the assumption that every step up is in a "more competent" (bigger jury, better judges and so on). You might call it double jeopardy - but I'm sure the US have examples of people which would have been found guilty if there had been more competent staff. Getting off because the lowest level of the court system just wasn't up to the task doesn't do much for justice either. You can however not be trialed for the same twice, though the supreme court can send it back down one step for a retrial, but once it's over it's over.
Personally, I have great trust in our Supreme court. They certainly aren't bending in the wind, some went as far as calling them racist based on what they let through under "freedom of speech". Not that I particularly agree with that case (think of hate speech as class-action libel), but they certainly aren't afraid to stand their ground. And I respect that greatly.
Kjella
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
You raise an interesting point, since Sweden is in the EU and hence European Court is the ultimate court.
Take a look at this clause:
"Article 50
Right not to be tried or punished twice in criminal proceedings for the same criminal offence"
The title says it clear as day. The AC higher up picked on the word 'finally' in the detail text and argued that justifies a process that allows 'criminal proceedings for the same criminal offence'.
No matter how you dress up the wording, Jon is being tried twice for the same crime here. He was aquitted the first time, he could be convicted the second time, and the intention of that clause is clear as day:
"Right not to be tried or punished twice in criminal proceedings for the same criminal offence"
So if Sweden has the same rules, a test case would be possible and we could see if a country can indeed use the 'finally' to prosecute twice, or not.
Has there been a challenge to the EU court on this already for Sweden?
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
But the rule is only that they have to *decide* to appeal within those two weeks, not that appeal has to be over within two weeks.
Apply the 'dictator' test. If a dictator made a rule that said "I can appeal any innocent verdict within 2 weeks", then he could simply endlessly appeal every innocent verdict until he gets a guilty. Exactly the type of "abusing their power and resources by continuously starting a new prosecution in the same case" you argued it doesn't allow.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
No, but by the same token the proceedings in a US court doesn't have to be finished by a set date either, do they.
In Sweden, there are only three levels of courts. Both parties can apeal to the next higher level. That level can either revisit the case, send it down to be tried again, or just deny to take the case, in which case the lower courts verdict stands.
Since there are set time limits on the apeals, the process is really to be viewed as one long case, with a definite end. The government cannot (of course) start over again, with the same case, once a verdict has been finally reached.
So your dictator couldn't endlessly apeal, actually he had only two attempts (maximum) and that's it. Each carrying the risk that the higher court will find your disatisfaction with the lower verdict unwarranted, and actually adjust the penalties against your wishes.
P.S. FYI, we don't have juries in Sweden, and hence none of the charade so common in US courts. In the lowest court there is one judge and 6 "laymen", appointed by (and from) the political parties in parliament. The next higher court has three judges. The highest court (which doesn't see many cases, since all cases before it have to have the potential to set a precedent. In 2000 1/2 percent of all apealed criminal cases were heard before the court) have five judges. If a precedent that differs from previous precedents by the highest court is to be set, all 16 judges have to be heard.
Not that precedents can only be set by the highest court, not the lower courts.
That's by and large the entire Swedish legal system. (With the exception of the other chain of courts, in which you apeal government decisions, similar in spritit to the above, but different names).
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
What I'm trying to do by these questions is determine exactly why you believe a system that allows the prosecution to try the case 3 times is somehow compatible with a Human Right that says it can be tried once.
You have made two arguments here:
1. That its not really 3 times, its one 'long' time.
To that, I point out that the first 'innocent' verdict would have stood without a further legal process, therefore it is aquittal and hence it was a trial.
2. That it is OK because its only 3 appeals maximum. (One long trial or 3? You've weakened your own argument by saying this).
To this I would point out that Norway signed up to a human right that says "not twice". i.e. Once is OK, twice is not.
Take a look at what they are doing to Jon, he wrote a program. There is no reason to believe that writing a DVD decoder was or is illegal. Since similar code must be in every DVD player, yet nobody is trying to arrest Sony programmers!
They are trying him on 'theft' charges. Theft is taking someones property with the aim of depriving them of it.
So what the prosecutor is doing here is twisting a law in an attempt to prosecute him. Once might be misguided, but trying to twist this law TWICE?
To me this is no different from a dictatorship trying an innocent person on some trumped up charge. He has been found innocent once, Norway signed up to a Human Right law in 1999 that says it promised not to try someone twice - yet here it is trying someone on a trumped up charge twice.
How is this different from any dictatorship retrying a person that already been declared innocent?
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
Well, how's that different from the US system with grand juries. Whereby if a grand jury fails to see enough evidence to prosecute (i.e. my lower court returning a "not guilty" since the evidence does not sufficiently support a "guilty verdict"), the case can still go to the next step (aka "trial") and a guilty verdict handed down?
If that's not "double yeopardy", why is our system? As I said; the trial cannot be started over, once the final verdict has been handed down.
And what about that twist where you can be tried twice; first by your state, and then by your federal government? That couldn't happen here, but again your system does not violate the human right that says "one trial"?
And while we're at it: What about that wonderful practice where you're in two trials, one a criminal and one civil, where you can be aquitted in the criminal proceeding and convicted in the civil? That's not "double yeopardy"? That likewise couldn't happen here. If you've been aquitted, you've been aquitted! No, two trials.
Our system (that you can liken to one long trial if you will) is that each case is tried in the lowest court, both parties can apeal twice (to the next higher, and then highest) for review of the facts presented (there isn't a new "trial" per se in the higher courts). And that's it. Strict time limits in each step.
No grand juries, no civil/criminal, and no state/federal. I'd say our system constains less double jeopardy than yours. That you claim does not contain any, (I presume from the tone of your post).
So let me turn the question and ask how exactly you think that the US system is compatible with the human right not to be tried twice for the same crime?
We agree fully on facts, of course Jon should be aquitted. But, and that's important in our system, he should be aquitted by the highest court (and that's what everybody expects) since it's a case that could (and IMHO should) set a precedent. And like your system, one trial, one precedent. The lower courts in our system cannot set a precedent.
P.S. If you wish to discuss differences, I'd be interested to hear your opinion on the other ones; no bail, no plea bargaining, no turning states evidence in exchange for immunity against prosecution, and no jury.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
"Article 50
Right not to be tried or punished twice in criminal proceedings for the same criminal offence
No one shall be liable to be tried or punished again in criminal proceedings for an offence for which he or she has already been finally acquitted or convicted within the Union in accordance with the law."
I.e. the "and penal procedure of that State" has gone. Not least because every bongo bongo land country used it as a loophole.
So its an abuse of human rights, lobby your EU rep, who now insist on Human Rights as part of all their trade agreements.
Its the best way to counter MPAA lobbying thats basically trying to twist a 'theft' law into a retrospective DMCA.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
See my comments under the Swedish law comment. You're arguing that a word in the text of the law allows the main thrust of the law to be reversed.
I don't think that would stand. After all what they've agreed to is "Right not to be tried or punished twice in criminal proceedings for the same criminal offence".
And however you word it, your arguing that he can be tried twice (even though its called an 'appeal' its a trial by any other name since he can be found guilty for something that he has already been found innocent of).
Since this is a 1999 adoption of human rights laws, it won't have been tested properly in Norway. So we couldn't settle this unless it was tested.
So how about the court of public opinion instead? I believe that if I argue this, it sounds right and fair and I can win in that court.
I testify to the court of public opinion, that this is an abuse of human rights, that it is in effect a "trial or punished twice in criminal proceedings for the same criminal offence" and therefore a breach of human rights legislation that Norway has signed up for.
I think this is a malicious attempt by the MPAA to apply Theft laws as a retrospective DMCA.
Over to you to argue your side.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:3, Informative)
The "main trust" of the law is that a defendant should only be subjected to a limited prosecution, and once finally aquitted in a case should not face further trials, allowing the government to use continuous harrassment as a way of punishing without a judgement. Whether that is handled by one, two or three courts (or more for that matter) is vitally different from allowing prosecution to go on and on without limit. It's the latter that the paragraph in question is meant to protect against.
Interestingly, the current British government is considering reducing the double jeopardy protection from US levels to something more in line with what's common elsewhere in Europe. Further, the EU is working on "Corpus Juris" a common criminal code for the entire EU, that in it's current draft incarnation specifically allow the prosecution to appeal an aquittal, in line with most national European criminal codes.
Double jeopardy in the UK and US form is in fact quite rare outside countries that derive their legal system from English common law.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
Its very explicit in how it defines "limited", it defines it as "NOT TWICE". Thats very clear. Once is OK, twice is not.
" under your interpretation it would require major restructuring of the legal systems in a large number of the signatory countries, which simply isn't likely"
It wouldn't require *any* change, the extra prosecutions simply wouldn't be brought.
For an example of how easy it is to change the laws, look at Surinda Singh (?), prior to that EU Court Case, EU law didn't apply to an EU citizen in their own countries. After that judgement, it applied to EU citizens who had used their rights in another EU country.
One judgement, total change of rights completely across Europe.
"Whether that is handled by one, two or three courts (or more for that matter) is vitally different from allowing prosecution to go on and on without limit. It's the latter that the paragraph in question is meant to protect against. "
The Human Right is very clearly 'once', taking Jon to court again on the same evidence in the same state for the same offence is clearly the sort of abuse you refer to in the last sentence.
You make the distinction between unlimited and limited, but the Human right says "not twice", not 'unlimited and limited'
"Further, the EU is working on "Corpus Juris" a common criminal code for the entire EU"
Its your and my EU too, you are entitled to your say too, the EU is always very helpful and I frequently seek their help as I work and live in different EU countries. If you don't like them trying to remove this human right, then you should let the Commission know.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
Just out of curiousity, how often do both sides disagree with the decision? "I don't care what the court said -- I'm guilty, damn it!"
On a more serious note, though, I think you're missing something about the American concept of double jeopardy when you say:
The two sides are not symmetrical. The state decides to prosecute, and the defendant is brought to trial. The initiative is entirely with the prosecution. If they haven't prepared a sufficient case, then they should have waited to bring charges until they had a better one. It's their job to, well, do their job.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
But the "innocent" verdict would have stood if no action was taken to prolong it. Therefore it was a valid verdict.
Therefore its two trials because he could be found innocent at the first one and guilty at the second.
Using your argument, you could make a law in some third world dictatorship saying that someone isn't innocent until the state decides to stop appealing the case.
But that would be the exact opposite of "right not to be tried twice". It would be the same principle and it would make a complete mockery of Article 50.
Therefore that could never have been the point of Article 50. There Norways "not really innocent until state stops apealing" is not consistent with Article 50.
Re:Double Jeopary in Norway (Score:2)
So you're argument is that its the *number* of times it goes to court that makes it acceptable. Norway being 3 max?
So are we arguing over how many times is OK, if we are, a Human Right that says that "Right not to be tried or punished twice"
Means the limit is 1 clearly.
Ray of Hope (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I'm.... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh...and Mr. Valenti, you can bite me.
Re:I think I'm.... (Score:2)
Rich.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I think I'm.... (Score:4, Funny)
I actually don't own a DVD player AT ALL, specifically because of the MPAA v. 2600.org case.
I AM voting with my dollars.
I do admit that the Matrix Reloaded will likely draw me to a theater, but DAMN IT, IT'LL BE A MATINEE!
Re:I think I'm.... (Score:2)
Measuring Piracy losses? (Score:5, Interesting)
The group estimates that piracy costs the U.S. motion picture industry $3.0 billion annually in lost sales
I'd honestly like to just take a statistics University Class and have them look over the methodology of it, and get them to report any breaks in logic. Where in god's name did this team get their figures from? How do you measure something like this...
I know it's not in sales drops, because I know that last year MPAA reports that they've had excellent sales lately...
I've never seen any kind of study that actually reports how much piracy is going on around the internet, so I can only really assume that they're going on estimations. Which is ludicrous... that's like counting the number of people in Russia and estimating the world's population based on those results... It's bloody insane!
The only way I think they can possibly justify this amount of money that's being lost is
a) When the MPAA pays money to hire people to do silly estimations like this.
b) When these companies' stock goes down because they lose some court case in which they were trying to sue some guy who wrote a program for ripping DVDs.... not to mention the lawyer costs behind these lawsuits.... how much do you think they put per year into prosecuting people like this?
Would it kill people to think a little critically when reading blind statistics like this?
Re:Measuring Piracy losses? Facts are CLOSE! (Score:2)
Sources for Piracy
1. Edonkey
2. Gnutella
3. Kazaa
4. Budddies
5. Warez Groups
Then add into the people in other countries who buy the movie reproduce the cover art, and resell it for ten bucks in the street. Or worse, 10 bucks to video stores who then then rent it 100 times for 2 bucks a piece.
I just Kazzaed the word DVD, and got about 30 full titles. And then you can be specific and just abt find anything.
Kazaa has 4 million users online now. if each user pirates one ten dollar movie a day for 30 days. That is 1.2 billion bucks a month.
Or these people who do not feel like ripping their own DVD? If you got the DVD who rips it, takes up space and processor cycles.
I know guys who have complete cd cases of 100-200 movies in Divx they have gotten off the net. And then they SVCD them and pass them around.
Hell when I was in South America I could buy them on the street. My old lady just got back from Turkey with an assload of them.
They would not be all over the net if people were not pirating them.
We need to look at piracy for what it is, not run around saying it does not happen. It is rampant and we can't hide behind the worn out excuse that information should be free.
Puto
Re:Measuring Piracy losses? Facts are CLOSE! (Score:2)
But that doesn't mean that the MPAA is losing money because people are now seeing movies they weren't going to buy anyways... And they say it's money they _lost_.... You can't account for every single person on a p2p system to believe that they don't already own the movie, or that they're going to keep said movie for a long time.
I know a good number of people who will download a movie, watch it, and if they like it go and buy said DVD.
Re:Measuring Piracy losses? (Score:2)
Studies have been done from time to time. Sometimes the estimates of the number of pirate copies are implausibly high, but that is not the real problem with the economic loss figures that they come up with. The real problem is that they simply take the estimated number of illegal copies, and multply by the list price. Most of the time they do not even bother to take account of the actual market prices of legal copies (i.e. discount prices, or second hand prices).
What they ought to do is try to estimate how many people would have bought a legal copy if illegal copies had not been available to them. Of course it would be impossible to get precise figures, but it would be possible to get reasonable estimates by surveying. As far as I know, no one has ever bothered to this, so we keep getting these massively inflated figures for economic losses.
Use the Chewbacca Defense! (Score:5, Funny)
Correct, in America they'd have to file a civil lawsuit once he was found innocent and takeaway his heisman
I wish people would stop complaining about this... (Score:2)
Summary / Clearing things up. (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, you can make private copies of anything as long as you do not distribute them in any way. One might call it backups.
Appeal system:
You can appeal a sentence, but each time this is done the next trial is by a higher instance in the justice system. If a higher instance refuses to take on the case, the old verdict is the one that counts. There are 3 levels + the Human Rights tribunal in Haag or so.
1. Herreds/Byrett (county/city court)
2. Lagmannsretten (laymen's court)
3. Høyesterett (Supreme court)
The supreme court, (translated from http://www.mossbyrett.of.no/info/i_straff.html) cannot retry whether the accused is guilty or not. It is only there for matters og priniciples, and has more or less been abolished as an instance for appeals. So basically, you can be retried for the same crime, but only a very limited amount of times, and by significantly different courts.
Justice... What is? (Score:3, Interesting)
Does it have anything to do with right and wrong? Or is it just a mechanism used by the powerful to penalize the weaker?
What I am getting it is just what *is* right or wrong? "Justice" just seems to be selective enforcement so that the forces of society can be directed at the weaker party, not the wronged party.Is the wielding of money to any different than the wielding of technology?
No-one is going to be able to pay Jon back for all this frustration he has been pestered with, yet the same force of "American Justice" that is used to pester Jon looks the other way when its the stronger ( financially speaking ) party doing the thing that someone else does not like them to do.
This whole sordid affair to me is just a demonstration of just how "unjust" our system has become. My immediate idea is to determine the resources of both parties - If Jon loses, RIAA gets the resources of Jon, if RIAA loses, Jon gets possession of the assets of those who are bringing on all this pesterance. In a Norwegian Court - as he, after all, *is* a Norwegian citizen. Now, that the element of who has the most money is nulled out, see if they still want to pester Jon.
Personally, I am sick of this whole sordid affair - I can't for the life of me see what Jon did wrong. No more than I would see it that someone figured a way to get my computer to dump its video signal onto a big-screen projector.
Re:Justice... What is? (Score:2)
Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, Big Business, Academia, etc...all politics is just one group attempting to gain the upper hand so it can knock the others down.
Welcome to the trenches of the culture wars.
There are no winners, only casualties. I hope Jon is not amongst them.
-Brett
Re:Justice... What is? (Score:2, Funny)
You ain't seen *nothin'* yet.
KFG
This just in from the No Shit Desk (Score:4, Insightful)
But protection from double jeopardy is still part of Norwegian law. Read the article to see why this occuring. Before any Merikins start pontificating about our venerated and very good, but also deeply flawed legal system, remember that you can be tried twice for the same charge in the States as well. Hung juries, witness tampering, lawyer misconduct etc. cause subsequent trials to occur. I don't know the statistics on how many 2nd and third trials result in acquittal, but a egg rots when left out in the sun. It is best to not face a jury too often.
If you are acquitted of a crime and subsequently admit that "yes" you actually did it, you can be hauled in for perjury if you attested in court that you did not do it (read this: never testify on your own behalf), and believe you me, if an Attorney General can figure a way to hang a Federal charge on you for the same crime or an attendant one, they will. Sure this isn't exactly the same as double jeopardy, but if you piss off the right/wrong prosecutor, they will get you no matter what. And you will be put on the hardest bitch cellblock in whatever state you live in. All prosecutors have to do to people is threaten them with "Brushy Mountain" here in Tennessee and people fold like lawnchairs. The very protocol for picking prosecutors requires that they keep their hearts in jars buried under fencepost on an uncle's farm. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way. Criminals need to be pursued and convicted.
Re:This just in from the No Shit Desk (Score:2)
Yep, expecially the innocent ones....
if an Attorney General can figure a way to hang a Federal charge on you for the same crime or an attendant one, they will.
if you piss off the right/wrong prosecutor, they will get you no matter what.
And you will be put on the hardest bitch cellblock in whatever state you live in. All prosecutors have to do to people is threaten them with "Brushy Mountain" here in Tennessee and people fold like lawnchairs.
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Re:How dare you.. (Score:2)
Anyhoow, fascism is the word. Mum is what you gotta be if you don't want to get it in the neck.
Money they COULD have made (Score:4, Insightful)
The losses screamed about under the dark moniker of piracy are merely missed opportunities for revenue. Are profits down? Yes, but they're still profits, not losses. And just because they're down, Hollywood studios and recording companies think they can enlist the powers-that-be to get them back up.
And sadly, they're right.
Re:Money they COULD have made (Score:2)
And just because [profits are] down, Hollywood studios and recording companies think they can enlist the powers-that-be to get them back up.
And sadly, they're right.
Actually, and even more sadly, they're wrong. They can use the government power to do various things, including blindly lashing out at anyone who they think is hurting their profits, but they only way they can actually make more money is by finding a way to convince more consumers to buy their stuff.
That they actually believe that putting this clever young Norwegian in prison will help them just shows how far out of touch they are. At best they'll convince the person who breaks their next attempt to deploy anti-Fair Use technology that (s)he should publish the information anonymously.
This must have been answered before... but... (Score:2)
There is no specific legislation in Norway to protect digital content, but Johansen's program has been criminalized in the United States under the Digital Copyright Millennium Act.
He is not being tried in US, he does not live in US, he didn't write the DeCSS (or its GUI rather) in US? And it's not illegal in Norway to do what he did. So what are the prosecution's charges?
The right way. (Score:2, Interesting)
article is so misleading.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at this BS:
Norwegian Teenager to Face Retrial for Film Piracy
Calling what Jon did "piracy" is a bit of a stretch isn't it? He wrote a program that reads the format of DVDs. Amazing that a news organization would use this expression.
acquitted by an Oslo court in January of charges of theft
No shit! Since there was no "theft", not even Mickey-Mouse Monopoly Money Copyright "theft"!
The group estimates that piracy costs the U.S. motion picture industry $3.0 billion annually in lost sales.
What does this have to do with Jon? How much did Jon lose from this stupid case, which has nothing to do with the MPAA's imaginary loses?
Johansen has become a symbol for hackers worldwide who say making software such as his -- called DeCSS -- is an act of intellectual freedom rather than theft.
Uh, hello, WRITING SOFTWARE is an act of creation, not of theft. Can't these people read the illogical statements they write?
There is no specific legislation in Norway to protect digital content, but Johansen's program has been criminalized in the United States under the Digital Copyright Millennium Act.
What, you mean Norway doesn't have copyright law? Yeah right. Laws like the DMCA don't protect *content* they protect *access methods* which "protect" content. They are "paracopyright" laws like one author has written.
I wish they would write the story and tell the truth: DVD-Jon wrote a program that lets you load DVDs into your computer. THAT'S ALL.
The evolution of Piracy:
What's next on the list I wonder?? Piracy == the crime of not preventing copyright infringement when you see it happening. Or maybe Piracy == not buying the latest Britnee CD.
FUCK I can't wait for this copyright nonesense to sort itself out.
Re:article is so misleading.. (Score:2)
There are several ways to to get rid of the nonsense in the copyright arena. Almost all of them would have zero effect on the GPL because the GPL is based on sensical copyright law, not on any of the nonsense. Any sensical resolution which DOES kill the GPL would make the GPL irrelevant in a good way. Those who advocate using the GPL would most likely cheer if the GPL died in this manner.
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Re:article is so misleading.. (Score:2)
Sometimes I wonder how many of them even know how to spell it
P.S. When I said "them" I was reffering to courts world wide, not specificly UK.
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Double jepardy would NOT have helped... (Score:2, Informative)
True, however, in the US, with the use of the DMCA, he NEVER would have been found not guilty. Under the DMCA, you cannot argue fair use. It's a strict liability statute. If you break encryption to make a copy you're guilty. It doesn't matter if you were making a copy of your own DVD. You'd be guilty.
The US system might be more fair procedurally, but at least he had a chance to be found not guilty in Norway, which he NEVER had here!
That's nothing! (Score:2)
Law reporting? (Score:4, Informative)
The article says, "There is no specific legislation in Norway to protect digital content, but Johansen's program has been criminalized in the United States under the Digital Copyright Millennium Act" -- a strange comment, too. Who cares about the DMCA with Johansen in Norwegian court? Another article [com.com] explained better, "Johansen was accused of violating Norway's computer crime law by helping to create the DeCSS DVD-descrambling utility."
On the double jeopardy angle, I looked around and can't find enough info. I assume that, as in several other countries, the appeals court looks for mistakes of law committed by the judge, not the weight of the evidence. I doubt he would be "tried again in an appeals court," notwithstanding the submitter's implication; it probably goes back to the Norwegian trial court. But who knows. Anyway, American double jeopardy has a surprising number of holes in it, such as the dual sovereignty doctrine that allows reprosecution up to 3 times in state/federal/military courts.
The US has some especially strict criminal rules. Whether Norway's system is a violation of fundamental civil rights is Norway's question, not Hollywood's. To compare Norway's system to, say, the United States, we'd want to weigh all their criminal rules as a batch, plus their discretion and fairness in executing those laws.
Disclaimer, I think this prosecution is a bunch of cr*p, but am totally confused by the reporting as to what's actually happening.
Obviously, IANANL. (Norwegian lawyer.) Be glad to hear from one!
Re:Law reporting? (Score:2)
One difference between the Norwegian legal system and the US legal system is that the Norwegians do not have jury trials. As a result they do not have the distinction between "aquital" by a jury, and "dismisal" by a judge. In this particular case it looks like the original acquital by a panel of judges had more to do with their legal rulings (i.e. what judges are resonsible for in the US) than with any factual findings (what juries are responsible for in the US). Here in the US "double jeopardy" does prevent any appeal against findings by juries (of innocence at least) but it does not prevent appeals against rulings by judges. So even if we were to imagine how a double jeopardy rule would work in the Norwegian system (I do not know if they have one) it is unlikely that it would prevent an appeal by the prosecution in this case. So long as the issue at stake is a matter of law, both the defence and the prosecution have a right to appeal.
Re:Law reporting? (Score:2)
I think you missed the point of my original post. Under US law the distinction between legal rulings and factual findings is usually very clear because they are carried out by different people. You are right that in some instances they are carried out by the same person (the judge) but even then the US system maintains a clear distinction between these two functions of the judge. Under the Norwegian system the distinction is not as clear. "Aquital" does not imply a factual finding as it does in the US. It may result merely from legal rulings by the judges. In this particular case it looks like the defendants "aquital" was the result of a legal ruling, and as such it would have been subject to appeal in the US (although of course in the US it would not have been called aquital at all).
You are also wrong about double jeopardy not attaching to the verdict. Mistrial, and sometimes dismissal, do not prevent retrial. Typically if a trial ends prematurely, the defendant can be tried again. The main exception to this is when the charges are dismissed because of lack of evidence - and here the presumption is that the trial would have ended in aquital. Although it is hard to find any sharp line that defines double jeopardy, the clearest line is the one drawn by the verdict of a jury.
Become proactive (Score:4, Interesting)
For now take a look at this letter writing guide [circusnews.com]. Over the weekend I will post a new one specific to the
Re:If they can't win on merit, beat them to death (Score:2, Insightful)
I say if you buy a CD, you help provide the legal funds to send Jon to jail.
Don't feed the tiger that keeps biting your ass!
Re:They have no chance. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:They have no chance. (Score:2, Informative)
The whole case agains DVD-Jon is not about him being guilty or not for the procecutors, it's about testing the law, and what this verdict means to other somewhat similar cases.
Re:They have no chance. (Score:5, Informative)
All trials begin at the lowest instance.
After that the second instance can choose to accept an appeal. It is always harder to get an appeal accepted when trying to sentence someone who was declared not guilt in a lower instance.
Then there is the highest instance, which doesn't accept many cases every year, but this case most likely WILL end up there, because it is a new crime, and this is the instance which details how new, untested laws should be interpreted. If they make a clear enough innocent verdict in this case, no further "not guilty" verdicts would make it to second instance next time a person is tried for a similar crime under this law.
And no slashdot post is complete without... IANAL...
Re:They have no chance. (Score:2, Informative)
>has a similar system.
But according to the post below it appears the Norwegian system is almost identical.
The second instance typically always take cases. Both sides in a case can appeal regardless of the verdict. So for example if the prosecutor argued for, say, 5 year in prison and the court went with 2, the prosecutor can appeal wanting a longer sentence. The defendant can also appeal wanting a shorter one or perheaps wanting a "not guilty". So you can appeal not only the guilty part but also the actual penalty.
Note that this is NOT making a new case, it is still the old case, it is just redone again in a higher court. If appealed, the ruling of the lower court will not be considered having taken effect.
The same would apply with the highest court, with the exception as stated that it only take cases of prinipal interest, to set precedence and test new laws. Lower courts can NOT set precedence like in for example USA, so you can't use old cases (except from the supreeme court) in your argumentation.
Still you can NOT be charged with the same crime twice. That is once the case is over (in whatever instance it ended up in) the prosecutor can't start a new one again. The only exception is if there is new evidence and circumstances to go with the old ones can not be used again in such a new case which makes it very hard and rare for such situations.
Re:They have no chance. (Score:2, Informative)
-scootages
Here's a simplified explanation of how the courts work:
Jon was tried in "by-retten," equivalent of a county court. For all intents and purposes, the lowest court. Jon won the case, and unlike the US rule of double jeopardy, the government has the same right as the defendant to appeal.
Norway government choose to appeal the decision to "Lagmannsretten." (2nd tier, comparable to Federal Appellate Court). Again, both sides present their case, and the loosing party can choose to appeal to "Høyesteretten." Compare this to the US Supreme Court. This highest of courts only accepts a few cases each year, and then 90% of the time it's for the purpose of setting a precedent, interpret the language of a certain law, or, in unusal cases, if due process has not been followed or there are questions about the due process. If you case is accepted to the high court, you present your case and it's a done deal after that. No more appeals, no more winners or loosers.
Couple of notes: Norway does not have a jury system, but instead relies on a Judge and layman judges who are educated in the field of which the defendant is accused. One of the laymen judged in Jon initial trial was Jon Bing, Norway's frontmost export on this issue.
Secondly, a decision handed down from the high court can *technically* be appealed to King Harald of Norway (yes, Norway is a Kingdom). The Kings meets one a week with "his" cabinet including the Prime Minister, where this appeal would then be discussed. This is a rarity and has only happened a handfull of times throughout history, and then only in cases involving issues like national security etc.
Jon's case will more than likely end up in the high court simply to prove a point and test the laws. While Norwegian laws are not binding outside of Norway, it does indeed set a precedent for similar trials in the rest of Europe.
Hope this helps
"Simply to prove a point" (Score:2)
Re:They have no chance. (Score:3, Insightful)
You must mean some different Europe from the one I know. The one I know is populated by regular people not saints.
Re:They have no chance. (Score:3, Informative)
In Norway, judges are appointed by the king. In the US federal government, they're appointed by the president with the consent of the "states." Not much difference between the two, but I think I prefer the system with some sort of official oversight, especially when the one appointing judges is also the one in charge of law enforcement.
In the US federal government, every citizen has the constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial by a jury of their peers, and they get to haggle with the prosecutor to make the fairest jury possible. There are no jury trials in Norway, with everything decided by the judge. I guess it's just a silly English concept, but again I'd rather go with the side that has oversight, going again back to the way the judge and prosecutor are (at least nominally) working for the same person.
In the United States, once acquitted, the person cannot be tried again for the same crime. Protection from double jeopardy is another legal concept foreign to Norway.
"Old but sane legal system."
Just about any way you cut it, the US legal system is older than Norway's. Denmark more or less gave Norway to Sweden in 1814, and only really became an independent country in 1905. The US federal legal system has been in continuous operation since at least 1789.
Re:They have no chance. (Score:2)
True, and later they wanted their independence, the swedish government deemed it to be to much of a hassle to break out the jackbooted thugs and granted it to them.
Probably a very wise choise for both partys, and they've gotten along pretty good ever since...
Re:Govt's in US can't appeal criminal convictions? (Score:2)
"You ever hear the U.S. Supreme court, or a state supreme court, or the federal Circuit Court of *Appeals*, or a state appellate court? These are all appellate courts and there for *both* sides if either side doesn't feel it got a fair shake."
No, they're only there for the defendant. An appeal counts as a new trial. On top of that, the US Supreme Court is only the highest court in federal matters and/or matters explicitly allowed by Article III and not forbidden by the Eleventh Amendment.
"If you're talking about double jeopardy, it only applies if a government actor tries to retry someone for the same criminal act after already going through the entire appeals process." It doesn't matter if the suspect is acquitted in the lowliest state court, the US Constitution explicitly states the way state and/or federal prosecutors can sit on it and rotate.
Re:Legal US centrism (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't the protection not given to the accused, but the fact that we have made the most trivial of unsocial acts into felonies. Take the narcotics offenders, prostitutes, check kiters, etc, out of prison and we'll be on parity with most of Europe. We do have a problem here, but it has to do with the laws and the enforcement of laws, and not the legal system itself.
So why do we have this problem? Just take a look at Slashdot. How many times have you seen a Slashdot poster suggest that justice is corrupted because Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are not in prison? Have you ever secretly wished that? Yet they have not committed any felonies (check the laws, they haven't). There are some here that would wish every officer of every corporation, as well as every proprietary software developer, to be sent to jail. This kind of attitude is dangerous, and it isn't limited to the US.
If I were to hazard a guess as to why this attitude is more of a problem in the US than in Europe, I would say it's because of the US two party "winner takes all" system, which encourages pandering to the whim of the public. Most most European nations have parliamentary systems where the winners must share the "spoils" of power.
Re:Legal US centrism (Score:2)
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are not in prison? Have you ever secretly wished that? Yet they have not committed any felonies (check the laws, they haven't).
Compare their aspirations (make people run Windows, immunise african children) with the rich USians of a century ago, the Vanderbilts and Hearsts of the world who personally started wars (Nicaragua, Philippines, etc.) (or gave them a helping hand) to further their ambitions. So we have (so far) got off quite lightly!
Re:Legal US centrism (Score:2)
More like a factor of 5 or 6. The US imprisonment rate is around 640 per hundred thousand. EU rates range from around 140 (England, Scotland, Portugal) down to 60 (Denmark, Northern Ireland). At a guess I would say the average is around 100. The US rate has doubled in recent years, so the difference was a factor of 3 not that long ago.
The war on drugs certainly explains a lot of the difference. Minor drug offenders are far more likely to get prison time in the US than almost anywhere else. Crime rates also explain a lot of the difference, and surprisingly GDP also explains a lot of the difference. The US has a lot of crime, but also can afford to spend a lot of money on catching and imprisoning criminals.
So the firmly rooted conviction among many Americans that their system gives better protection to the accused, because of the technical implementation of their double jeopardy rule seems very misguided, and more of parroting what hey were told in school than based on actual knowledge of the issues.
You seem to think that legal protections are supposed to keep the guilty out of prison. While they do sometimes do this, it is not their intended purpose, and generally not their effect. Rules like double jeopardy are designed to keep the innocent out of prison, so it should be no surprise at all that strong civil liberties do not result in a lower prison population.
None of that rhetoric has ever suggested that crminals should enjoy liberty.