UK has 'no authority' over death of woman shot in US

Comments

• tal@lemmy.today ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’s actually kind of more interesting of a question than I initially thought from the title.

  So, not an area of expertise, but from my quick skim;

  • Daughter is British citizen

  • Father is British citizen (maybe dual American citizen, dunno)

  • Father shoots daughter in US; states that discharge was unintentional. Father was apparently drunk at the time.

  • A grand jury in US gives a “no-bill” result. It’s stating that the prosecution doesn’t have a viable case and should not proceed. The bar for the prosecution to pass this bar is not very high, and so this result is exceptionally uncommon.

  • Mother of daughter goes to US, tries to get district attorney to prosecute anyway. This is apparently technically possible to do. After a grand jury returns “no-bill”, the prosecutor is not prevented from convening another grand jury to attempt to get the prosecution to be approved, but it is very rare for this to happen once a grand jury has returned a “no-bill” result. In this case, the prosecutor is not interested in trying again and is not willing to see the mother.

  • I was wondering about the FCDO (like…I don’t think that trying to sell the prosecutor on a new attempt directly is the best route). The FCDO actually has a webpage dealing specifically with this sort of event, which rather sounds like they want people to stop trying to get them to get foreign courts to prosecute foreign crimes, and that they normally defer to foreign courts.

    gov.uk/…/murder-manslaughter-and-infanticide-of-b…

    The legal responsibility and authority (the jurisdiction) for the investigation into the circumstances of the death is most likely to remain in the country where the death occurred. The FCDO’s role does not extend to any investigative activity, and we cannot interfere in another country’s investigative or judicial processes. The FCDO will register UK interests and request updates from the foreign competent authority where appropriate and possible. The foreign country is under no obligation to provide the information requested.

    In most cases there is little involvement from, or role for, England and Wales police forces or coroners. A coronial investigation will only take place if the body is repatriated to England and Wales and reported to the coroner, and where the death is violent, unnatural, or of unknown cause.

  • A British coroner returns a finding suggesting manslaughter (but I’m assuming that this is just a “this is consistent with manslaughter and one could be charged” finding, since I can’t imagine that a coroner could return much that would be meaningful; whether or not manslaughter was committed would depend on how reckless or something the father was in his actions, and the state of the body wouldn’t provide much information.

  • Family goes to local British police force. These guys can liase with the American police where the crime occurred, but otherwise don’t have much of a role, and says that they can’t really conduct an investigation in the US.

  • There is a law in the UK that permits prosecution in the UK of a British national who commits manslaughter abroad; father is a British national, so could potentially be subject to this. It sounds like this customarily is not used if the person is tried in a foreign court and acquitted (though this is apparently not a hard legal restriction, unlike an analogous law in the US). It sounds like the grand jury returning no-bill probably would not probably constitute an acquittal.

    The Home Office also states that generally, they don’t want to attempt to prosecute people domestically if there’s a foreign judicial process:

    gov.uk/…/extraterritorial-jurisdiction-factsheet

    Does extending extraterritorial jurisdiction mean that the UK will be responsible for prosecuting relevant offences committed anywhere in the world?

    Government policy generally on the jurisdiction of our courts is that criminal offending is best dealt with by the criminal justice system of the state where the offence occurred. If an accused person is not prosecuted in the state where the offence occurred, a prosecution would only take place in the UK if the accused person were physically present in this jurisdiction (following extradition if necessary), there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest to prosecute.

  So it sounds like:

  • Technically, a second American attempt at prosecution with a second grand jury is possible, but would be uncommon subsequent to such a grand jury “no-bill” finding.

  • Technically, a British prosecution attempt could happen, even in the event of an acquittal, but would not be normal.

  • I don’t know what weight British prosecutors view the impact of a grand jury finding in the US, as the UK doesn’t use grand juries in 2026. It guess it’s possible that the issue hasn’t come up before.

  • A British prosecution would probably only happen if the father was physically present in the UK and they believed that they had a viable case; it sounds like he lives in the US, so the UK would presumably have to extradite him.

  So my guess is that the UK probably does assert authority to prosecute, but that this is something that would only be used in exceptional cases.

  It sounds kind of like, while the article doesn’t do a great job of splitting them up, the mother has tried three different avenues, first trying to get another attempt at American prosecution, second on a “this could be prosecuted in the UK” route and third on a “I have additional information and want more American investigation using this information”.

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I think it would be best to keep pushing America to prosecute. I presume a case hasn’t actually happened over there yet?

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