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Jamaica, US and extradition
published: Thursday | April 8, 2004
By Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate Editor
OVER THE last 12 years, Jamaica has been one of the United States Government’s most active extradition partners since the two nations signed the treaty in 1991.
Indeed, the level of co-operation has been such over the years, that at one stage in 1997, there was no extradition detainee in custody or on bail awaiting first-instance hearing before a Resident Magistrate’s Court, the court of committal which can order extradition.
Ten fugitives were extradited from Jamaica to the United States in 2003.
According to the March 2004 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, published by the U.S. Department of State, “Jamaican authorities are receptive to and co-operative with U.S. requests for extradition, and are working with U.S. authorities to accelerate the extradition process.”
It observed, however, that an “overburdened court system combined with the appeals process available to … defendants means that contested extradition requests can take two to five years to litigate fully”.
200 CASES
It said the U.S. Government supported the highly effective Jamaica Fugitive Apprehension Team (JFAT), with guidance from U.S. Marshals, specialised training, equipment and operational support. JFAT, it said, was actively working on more than 200 extradition cases, the majority involving drug or homicide charges.
Extradition to the United States which had been going on for several years, was energized in 1999 when the Jamaican Government, with the assistance of the United States Govern-ment, formed a special Jamaican Fugitive Apprehen-sion Team (JFAT), to target and apprehend fugitives from the law in the USA. In 2000 JFAT, aided by officers of the U.S. Marshals Service, made more than 20 arrests.
In 1994, Jamaica extradited one person to the United States; in 1995 it was six; in 1996, one, but eight US-citizen fugitives were expelled or deported. In 1997 it extradited three; in 1998, four; in 1999, four; in 2000, ten; in 2001, nil, but nine in 2002.
Jamaica has extradition treaties with the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries.
The extradition treaty between the governments of Jamaica and the United States was formally implemented on June 7, 1991, when Jamaica and the United States exchanged instruments of ratification at a ceremony at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C.
However, the treaty has not always operated smoothly. It was reviewed in 1992 after incidents involving two Americans who came here in July 1992 to take back to the States with them, two resident aliens who were wanted in the USA. In one case, Frank Santana, who worked for an American bonding agency, got the assistance of a Jamaican policeman to take Haniff Ishmael, a Guyanese national who was wanted in the USA on cocaine charges, to Sangster International Airport, Montego Bay, with a view to taking him back to the United States. However, a Jamaican immigration officer prevented Santana from taking Ishmael back with him.
In the second case, Randy Fenster, an American private investigator, came under suspicion when he enquired about taking back with him to the United States, Fitzroy Riley, a Jamaican resident of the United States who was wanted in Larimer, Colorado, on fraud charges.
And in August 1992 Norris Barnes, a Montego Bay businessman, filed suit in the Supreme Court against Frank Saren and Jose Torres, two agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Admini-stration, and Mel Spence, a former Jamaican policeman, claiming that they had lured him to a yacht in Montego Bay, kidnapped him and taken him to the United States where he served two years on drug trafficking charges.
But the most celebrated case involved Richard Orville ‘Storyteller’ Morrison, then 40, a crony of Lester Lloyd Coke, better known as ‘Jim Brown’, who was then the ranking don in Tivoli Gardens, west Kingston and who had been on remand at the General Penitentiary awaiting appeal of an order to extradite him to South Florida, where they were both accused of being leaders of the Shower Posse.
Both were seeking leave to appeal their extradition orders to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.
Morrison had been ordered extradited to Tampa, Florida, for trial.
Jim Brown perished in a mystery fire which gutted his prison cell on February 23, 1991.
ADMINISTRATIVE ERROR
On June 12, 1991, an administrative error in the Registry of the Jamaican Court of Appeal – the misplacing of a document confirming Morrison’s intention to appeal – led to Morrison being surrendered prematurely to U.S. law enforcement agents who extradited him to the USA.
The Jamaican Government made diplomatic and legal efforts to have the Americans return him, since he had not been legally extradited, but these failed.
In April 1992 he was tried in the Middle District Court, Fort Myers, Florida, and sentenced to 24 1/2 years’ imprisonment without parole, on cocaine charges.
At the time, the Morrison case generated a lot of discussion in Jamaica and in the United States and escalated into an international dispute of sorts between the two countries, with the Jamaican government complaining that there had been a breach of its Extradition Treaty with the United States. Indeed extraditions from Jamaica to the United States were suspended for a time.
U.S. STANCE
The stance of the United States authorities then, was that once an accused person was in whether he had an appeal pending elsewhere, or how he had got to the United States in the first place.
In June 1995 K.D. Knight, then Minister of National Security and Justice, explained to Parliament, Jamaica’s position on the Morrison case and on the extradition treaty in general.
He said that on the instructions of Cabinet, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had sent two Diplomatic Notes to the U.S. Government.
ASSURANCE
The first note brought to the attention of the U.S.A. the fact that Morrison had been tried in the United States for an offence other than the offence for which he had been extradited in circumstances which constituted a breach of Article XIV of the Extradition Treaty.
The note made it clear that Jamaica protested the breach, and required assurance from the U.S.A. in respect of each and every extradition request, that all the necessary steps would be taken by the U.S.A. to ensure that the provisions of the Speciality Rule set out in article XIV of the treaty would be observed by the U.S.A., and there would be no recurrence of this breach.
The second Diplomatic Note proposed negotiations with the U.S.A. to amend the Extradition Treaty in such a manner that would:
First, prohibit the trial of a person brought to the territory of the other party in circumstances similar to those in which Dr. Humberto Alvarez-Machin, a Mexican national, had been abducted in 1990 from Mexico and taken to the U.S.A, and, second, ensure that the procedure in the Extradition Treaty would constitute the only means for securing the removal of a person from the territory of one party to the territory of another party, for trial.
In the Alvarez-Machain case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, on June 15, 1992 that the U.S. government may kidnap people from a foreign country and prosecute them over that nation’s objection.
ABDUCTED IN MEXICO
Dr. Alvarez-Machain was abducted from his office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990 and forced aboard a plane bound for El Paso, Texas, where he was arrested by U.S. officials and taken to California. He was charged with using his medical skills to keep Enrique Camerana alive while the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent was tortured and interrogated in Mexico in 1985.
Many lawyers in private practice are strongly of the view that the Jamaica-U.S.A. Extradition Treaty is weighted against Jamaican extradition accused and should be re-negotiated.
The late eminent Ian Ramsay, Q.C., explained to this reporter in December 1997, ‘The Rule of Speciality’, which he described as a deficiency of the extradition treaty:
“When the person is sent abroad extradited – the rule under our law, the Extradition Act, says that he should not be tried or punished for any offence but the one for which he was extradited.
“As a matter of fact, the rule that we have merely beats the air because America is a federal state and the federal government cannot curtail state rights. Hence, once the person gets to America, the particular state in which he is, can try him for any crime and cannot be stopped, as a matter of law, by the federal government. They may, of course, as a matter of courtesy, decide no to, but that’s not law, that’s courtesy.”
Government prosecutors in Jamaica who represent requesting states, tend to believe that, if anything, the Jamaica-U.S. Extradition Treaty puts the Jamaican national at an advantage.
In the last 10 years at least four persons who the U.S. Government sought to extradite, have walked free.
Article X of the Jamaica-U.S. Extradition Treaty, provides for provisional arrest. It states: “In case of urgency either Contracting Party may request the provisional arrest in accordance with the law of the Requested State of any accused or convicted persons pending the request for extradition. Application for provisional arrest shall be made through the diplomatic channel or directly between the Minister responsible for extradition in Jamaica and the Department of Justice in the United States.
It states that the application shall contain: a description of the person sought; the location of that person if known; such information as would be necessary to justify the issuance of a warrant of arrest had the offence been committed, or the person sought been convicted, in the territory of the Requested State; and a statement that a request for extradition of the person sought will follow.
REQUESTED STATE
On receipt of such an application, the Requested State shall take the appropriate steps to secure the arrest of the person sought. The Requesting State shall be promptly notified of the result of its application.
For how long can a person who is provisionally arrested be kept in custody?
Section X (4) states: “A person who is provisionally arrested shall be discharged from custody upon the expiration of sixty (60) days from the date of arrest, pursuant to the application for provisional arrest if the executive authority of the Requested State has not received the formal request for extradition and the supporting documents required by Article VIII.”
A person whose extradition is being sought may waive his right to an extradition hearing, surrender himself to the authorities and agree to return to the Requesting State, as it were voluntarily, but of course in the custody of representatives of the Requesting State.
Article XV states:
“If the person sought agrees in writing to extradition after personally being advised by a Judge or competent Magistrate of his right to further extradition proceedings, the Requested State may grant extradition without formal proceedings.”
The treaty, at Article VIII, sets out the procedures and documents required for an extradition hearing:
1. The request for extradition shall be made through the diplomatic channel.
2. The request for extradition shall be supported by: (a) documents, statements, or other evidence which describe the identity and probable location of the person sought;
(b) a statement of the facts of the case, including, if possible, the time and location of the offence;
(c) a statement of the provisions of the law describing the essential elements and the designation of the offence for which extradition is requested;
(d) a statement of the provisions of the law prescribing the punishment for the offence and
(e) a statement of the provision of the law prescribing any time limit on the prosecution or the execution of punishment for the offence.
3. A request for extradition relating to a person who is sought for prosecution shall also be supported by: (a) a copy of the warrant of arrest issued by a judge or other judicial authority in the Requesting State; and (b) such evidence as would justify the committal for trial of that person if the offence had been committed in the Requested State.
When the request for extradition relates to a convicted person, in addition to those items required by paragraph two, it shall be supported by a certificate of conviction, or copy of the judgement of conviction rendered by a court in the Requesting State. If the person has been convicted and sentenced, the request for extradition shall also be supported by a statement showing to what extent the sentence has been carried out. If the person has been convicted but not sentenced, the request for extradition shall also be supported by a statement to that effect.
Statements, depositions and other documents transmitted in support of the request for extradition shall be transmitted through the diplomatic channel and shall be admissible if certified or authenticated in such manner as may be required by the law of the Requested State.
_________________________________________
Other members of the notorious Shower posse were caught by the US authority and are serving sentences in US federal Prisons. For example Richard “Story Teller” Morrison a high ranking aid of Cooke and Blake was extradited and sent to prison and is now serving a term of 30 years to life on murder and racketeering. Maxwell Bogle who had been listed as one of the world’s 100 most dangerous men in 2001and was sentenced to 58 years to life in absentia was caught in the same year and is behind bars. Another extremely low ranking lieutenant Rycliffe Bruce on the FBI most wanted list for gunning down a DJ in a crowded dance with two automatic pistols in his hands.
Jamaican gang activities have extended itself to Canada the Malvern Crew and the Galloway crew wreaked havoc in the Scarborough area of Toronto committing random acts of violence gunning down innocent bystanders in an attempt to intimidate and assert their badness honour status. The terrorised the Toronto areas for about two years. One of the most feared gangsters that headed the Galloway Gang was Tyshan Riley a 23 years man of Jamaican descent. He was described by the Canadian Mounted Troupe as the worst killer that the City had ever seen. Things came to a head for the gangsters when they gunned down an innocent bystander in 2004.A joint Canadian Police Command was assembled code named Project Pathfinder. It consisted of officers from the Homicide Squad, the Special Investigation Service, the Intelligence Bureau and Prosecutors from the Attorney Generals Office. The officers swoop down on the gangs and Tyshan Riley and Phillip Atkins along with seven other gang members were arrested. Project Pathfinder according to a Canadian police source got its name from a Nissan SUV used by one of the alleged gangster who is from a Jamaican decent. Most of the men caught in the police sting are behind bars serving lengthy prison sentences for charges ranging from intimidating witness, gangsterism, robberies, and murder.
The United Kingdom and England in specific is vulnerable to the activities of Jamaican gangsters and their satellite network due to its large West Indian migrant population made up mainly of Jamaicans. The first wave of immigrants(492 persons)that formed the British African Caribbean community arrived in 1948 from Jamaica on a Ship known as the Empire Wind rush the first generation of these Caribbean immigrant are often referred to as the wind rush generation. They were for the most part hard working people who migrated to seek work and helped to rebuild the United Kingdom after the ravages of the Second World War. Most of these immigrants settled around South London and made Brixton their unofficial capital. The town of Brixton is often described as the soul of black Britain. It is famous for the Brixton riot of 1980, Nelson Mandela visited the town in 1996 and a street is named in his honour. A square in the centre of the town has been named and dedicated to the memory of the Wind rush Generation contribution to the development of the United Kingdom. This historic and proud contribution to the development of British life is now overshadowed by the activities of Jamaican Gangs who have stretched their influence across England and have forged their reputation by drug dealing and several episodes of gruesome blood -letting.
In 2003 things came to a head so much that the Independent a respected British news paper broke the story that around 200 “hard core yardies” are based in Lambeth South London. The paper recorded that they were operating as members of the “firehouse posse” or Brixton “Cartel crew”. Most of the gangs connected to the Jamaican Migrant communities in the united Kingdom are loosely called yardies the operate and integrate themselves across the UK among the migrant communities and have recruited their members from mostly recent Jamaican migrants and second generation Jamaicans living in the United Kingdom.Peter Walsh the author of Gang war makes an important point that term “yardie” has become so ubiquitous so that it means any Jamaican, African or black gang. These gangs are so entrenched in London that a famous estate in Brixton is referred to as “Little Tivoli” after Tivoli gardens a JLP garrison in Jamaica. Other prolific Jamaican influenced gangs are: the lock city crew, the much love crew in Harlsden,the Hackney posse in East London, The young Peck ham boys ,the Peck ham boys, the ghetto boys in Lewis ham, the murder zone crew, The poverty driven crew and the paid in full crew. Turf war is rife among yardie gangs and the recent trend is the younger gang members breaking of to form their own unit. For example the young Peckham boys broke away and form their own unit and were said to be involved in the murder of a ten year old African youth Damilola Taylor.
For both old and young Jamaican influenced gangsters automatic and semi- automatic guns is a necessity. They move from house to house at nights making it hard for the London Metropolitan Police to track them. This took place after a spate of shootings in the black community in London in the mid nineteen nineties. The Metropolitan Police launched Operation Trident consisting of an elite core of armed police officer to deal with the spate of shooting and gun related murders across London. At that time Cold Harbour Lane in Brixton was reporting three shootings per week along with a number of shootings in Lambeth and Brent. By 2001 things got out of hand so much that the police in a desperate bid to stem the escalation shot dead Derek Bennett a man of Jamaican decent after brandishing a gun shaped cigarette lighter in public. Despite wide spread outcry of murder by his relatives. A coroner’s inquest was held and a verdict of unlawful killing was handed down by the coroner and subsequently held upon appeal.
The killings continued unabated without the police making inroads with the recovery of firearms and operation Trident focused their swoop around the Broxton area in an attempt to deter gangsters from carrying firearms while appealing to the public for information this created a positive effect in terms of containment but by 2006 Brixton was again in the headlines. In September 2006 Brixton was the scene of a widely reported shooting of two boys in a McDonald Restaurant on Brixton Road Acre lane.
The new breed of Jamaican style yardie gangsters and “wannabees” in the United Kingdom is propelled by the growing availability of three commodities: greed, drugs and guns. The new trend is for the more powerful urban crew of gangsters to deliberately encroach in nearby northern cities. The headline making conflict that earned Manchester the infamous label of “Britain’s Chicago” in 2004- was a chilling episode aptly captured by Peter Walsh the author of Gangs War: The Inside Story of the Manchester Gangs and one of the authors of the book Cocky, about British drug baron Curtis Warren. Gangsters on mountain bikes chased each other down a Manchester hospital corridor as staff bravely tried to barricade doors and protect patience who were members of the Goosh Close Gang and their rivals the Long Sight Crew hunted each other through the wards masked in hoods, balaclavas and bandannas. The incident occurred because a member of each gang had been taken to hospitals with gun shot wounds in an incident that also involved the killing of Leon Johnson a Goochie member who had been mowed down in a hit an run attack. As a result of the incident ten young men were later jailed for either affair or pubic order offences. Things died down between both gangs but in July 2005 they were at it again: the Goosh and the Dooddington gang fought hand in hand and traded gun shots at each other in broad day light in the Manchester city centre.
The West Indian involvement has been key to the spread of gangs in many UK cities. A 2003 report suggested Jamaican Yardies had invaded Britain at an ‘alarming rate’ and their control of the crack trade had gradually spread north, reaching as far as Aberdeen. Of 43 police forces in England and Wales, 36 reported a problem with Yardie gangs. Yet in spite of their almost insane brutality, the Yardies have not always fared well against home grown rivals. In Birmingham, Jamaica interlopers were faced down by the ‘homeboys’ of Hands worth and Lozells: the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew. The Burgers and the Johnnies, however, then turned there guns on each other in a tit-for tat spiral. That culminating in the tragic killing of Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare at a New Years day party. Far from cowing the gangs, such high-profile incidents seem to heighten their bravado. The Birmingham gangsters have even made and distributed DVDs of their exploit
The city of Leeds was relatively free of violence until the murder of towering gangsters Clifton “Junior” Bryan in 2002 before that he survive a close assassination bid when he was lured in a house with another man, Dennis Wilson, who was shot in the head. Their bodies were bundled into the trunk of a car which was later found abandoned in a district in the outskirts of Leeds.
The clutches and influence of the Jamaican Yardie gangs which has its roots in the political garrisons of Jamaica have been exported and entrenched in the capitals and cities of North America and Europe. Hundreds of deportees have been repatriated by European and North American law enforcement agencies. Some of these deportees have found their way back to their point of deportation shortly after. Others continue to contribute to the burgeoning crime statistics in Jamaica yet a few have been rehabilitated and have turned their life around. The legend and reputation of Jamaican influence gang activity is etched on the mind of law enforcement agencies globally who often shudder and cringe when confronted by their fearless activities.
Donovan Reynolds is a British based Jamaican Social Worker who is a Human Rights campaigner,Independent Writer,Blogger and Author of” Poor and Boasy”: a tour de force of Jamaican culture seen trough secular point of view.He also has an interest in culture,politics and international development issuesThis is an edited version of chapter 5.Readers wanting to comment or critique this article can do so at the space provided for comments on this blog.Alternatively they may give their feedback at [email protected], or on the facbook or Twitter link.
TAKEN FROM http://dannygerm.blogspot.com/2012/06/global-criminal-links-part2-gangs-of.html
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..2
The History and Purpose of the Treaty……….………………………………………….…4
Extradition Saga Of Christopher “Dudus” Coke…………………………………..………8
Did The Jamaican Government Have Legal Grounds For Refusing
The Extradition Request?…………………………………………………………………………………………..10
Was Mr. Coke a Person Defined in the Treaty and Therefore Subject to
Extradition Though Not a Citizen of the United States?…………………………………………….10
Did The Treaty and the Jamaican Extradition Act Provide The Jamaican Government With Defenses To The Extradition of Mr. Coke?.……………………………………………….……………………………………..14
Article VII of the Extradition Treaty……………………………………………15
The Jamaican Extradition Act………………………..………………………….15
Did The Jamaican Government Rationally Rely On Doctrine Of Specialty
In Refusing To Sign The Request?…. ……………………………………………………………………..17
Jamaican Government Raises The Doctrine of Specialty as a Possible
Reason for Not Extraditing Mr. Coke to the United States…………..……………17
Specialty And The Case of Richard “Story Teller” Morrison…….…………….18
Explaining the Doctrine Specialty……………………………………………….20
The Jamaican Government’s Concern Regarding the Application
of the Doctrine of Specialty as a Defense in American Courts…………..……..21
Conclusion…………………………………………………..………………………………….25
Introduction
Although the United States has been battling illicit drug trafficking for many years, during the last four decades, “international drug control bec[a]me a major priority in the formulation of United States foreign policy1.” To that end, the United States, among other things: (1) enacted laws that would enable it to meet its obligations under international treaties2 and reduce domestic drug consumption; and (2) entered into new treaties that would facilitate the fight against multinational enterprises and conspirators involved in drug trafficking.3 4 In June 1983, to broaden and further its drug policy agenda in the Caribbean, and to improve its “ability to combat international narcotics trafficking,5” the United States entered into its “first modern extradition treaty within the Caribbean region.”6
Although, pursuant to the Treaty, the United States, tried and imprisoned some of Jamaica’s most infamous crime figures, the Treaty, or more appropriately its enforcement is not without criticism. In fact, some have questioned whether the Treaty is fair,7 while others have asserted that in enforcing the Treaty, the United States simply ignores the constitutional rights of Jamaican citizens8 9 and forces the Government of Jamaica to break its own laws.10 Still yet, others argue that enforcement of the Treaty is really an exercise of the United States’ political and economic strength.11 As a result, many Jamaicans argue that there is no need to extradite Jamaican citizens12 to the United States, whose laws and legal traditions are significantly different from Jamaica’s, and whose citizens are the primary consumers and demanders of the illegal drugs exported from Jamaica, and the suppliers of illegal guns imported into Jamaica.13 Many Jamaicans complain that the Treaty should not be interpreted as a hammer used by the United States to secure the extradition of purported criminals.14 Instead, it, like other treaties, should “be construed as to effect the apparent intention of the parties to secure equality and reciprocity between them.”15
To be sure, the Treaty is not enforced by purely formulaic and mechanical routines wherein Jamaica and the United States merely acquiesce to each other’s extradition requests. Instead, when a so-called Third World country is hesitant to comply with an extradition request from the United States, the United States uses its substantial bargaining power to coerce and ensure compliance.16 That coercion, of course, may upset the government and the people of the nation being forced into submission.17
This article will analyze the history of the Treaty (i.e. the circumstances and context that gave rise to the drafting and execution of the Treaty), and some of the reasons that the Jamaican government and its citizens offered in initially refusing to comply with the Government of the United States’ Extradition Request for Christopher “Dudus” Coke. The article will examine whether the Treaty and/or the laws of Jamaica provided the government of that country with the unfettered discretion to refuse an extradition request from the United States, and it will further explore whether the international doctrine of specialty and its interpretation and application by American courts properly cautioned or informed the conduct of the Jamaican government in refusing to comply with the Extradition Request for Mr. Coke.
The History And Purpose Of The Treaty
During the 1970s, Jamaica became another pawn on the cold-war chess board. Michael Manley had been elected Prime Minister of Jamaica in 1976, and his domestic agenda was too left of central to make the United States comfortable. In fact, Prime Minister Manley’s policies on education and minimum wage laws18 were labeled as socialist.19 His party’s, the People’s National Party, congenial relations with Cuba and the ambivalence or even support of some of its members for communism scared the United States Government and the Jamaican captains of industry.20 “The local communist group, the tiny Workers’ Party of Jamaica, made matters worse by pushing the line that socialism and communism were really the same thing, and, if not quite the same, that socialism was simply the first step on the road to communism.”
In light of its cold war with Russia and its acrimonious relationship with communist Cuba, the United States could not and would not permit Jamaica, it believed, to saunter down the road to Marxism.21 Consequently, the United States Government aligned itself with Michael Manley’s opposition—The Jamaican Labor Party and its enigmatic leader, Edward Seaga.22 Edward Seaga was also the Member of Parliament for West Kingston, which he had socially engineered into a power base for himself and the Jamaican Labor Party (“JLP”).23 West Kingston, and Tivoli Gardens in particular, became Jamaica’s first political garrison or garrison constituency.
“Neighborhoods such as Tivoli Gardens were originally created as bulwarks of political support for politicians who sustained the communities through cientage [sic] in exchange for votes.”24 In the late 1970s, the CIA worked with Seaga and the JLP to destabilize Manley’s government.25 To strengthen the JLP, the CIA, it is alleged, provided weapons and economic aid to the JLP and its supporters. At that time, the United States entered into a marriage of convenience with the JLP and the gangs that operated in the JLP’s garrison constituencies.
During the 1970 and 1980s, political gangs in Jamaica grew in stature.26 The political gangs were inextricably intertwined with the political parties, whom they supported and for whom they secured and obtained votes.27 The men (called dons), who controlled these garrisons for and sometimes at the behest of the politicians, were often regarded as “Robin Hood” type figures by residents of the garrisons. 28 29 Lester Lloyd Coke, also known as Jim Brown, was one of these figures. He and Vivian Blake, would become the leaders of the Shower Posse, and they operated out of Tivoli Gardens.
Robin Hoods, like Jim Brown and Blake, who were America’s enforcers in the war against communism in Jamaica, needed capital30 to initiate social welfare programs in their communities and to bolster their relationships with political figures and thus, it is alleged, they exponentially exported marijuana to the United States.31 In 1981, marijuana exports from Jamaica to the United States rose from 900 to 1200 metric tons.32 In 1984, it was estimated that exports of the same crop would have increased to between 1,627 to 2,977 metric tons.33 The United States did not wish to pressure Seaga’s government to eradicate marijuana fields and exportation, because Jamaica had become a close ally in the war against communism and, pressure, it was believed, would have forced Jamaica back into Manley’s more leftist stance. 34 The United States government believed that a leftist Jamaican government was a bigger threat to America’s national security than drug trafficking.35
That reasoning; however, was erroneous because the Shower Posse later recognized that crack cocaine and powder cocaine trades were more lucrative ventures36 and formed relationships with Columbian and other South American cocaine producers.37 38 Jamaica, as a consequence, became an exporter of cocaine to the United States, and the Shower Posse39 made a violent40 entry into crack cocaine distribution in major cities throughout the United States.
Throughout the early 1980s, as a result of the increased drug trafficking from, among others, Latin America and the Caribbean, crime grew throughout major American cities.41 For example, in 1981, as a result of drug-related crimes, Miami, West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale were among the top-ten crime infested cities in the United States,42 and, in 1982, twenty-five percent of all murders were related to illegal drug trafficking.43 As a result of increased drug trafficking into its shores, the United States needed and sought the cooperation of the Jamaican government to thwart the efforts of narco-traffickers. Consequently, the Treaty was signed in 1983 and went into effect in 1991.44 The Treaty supersedes the United States-United Kingdom Treaty on Extradition of 1931, which was made applicable to Jamaica, a former British colony, in 1935.45
Extradition Saga Of Christopher “Dudus” Coke
In August 2009, pursuant to the Treaty, the Government of the United States of America sent an extradition request (the “Request”) to the Government of Jamaica46 wherein the Government of the United States of America requested that the Government of Jamaica extradite Christopher “Dudus” Coke to the United States.47 Ironically, Mr. Coke is the son of Lester Lloyd Coke, who formally was America’s partner in the war against communism, and who also was the subject of an extradition request from the United States government to Jamaica.48 Mr. Coke (“Dudus”) had been indicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.49 In the indictment, the Government of the United States of America alleged that Mr. Coke was a member of the Shower Posse and that he “and others known and unknown, unlawfully, intentionally, and knowingly combined, conspired and confederated, and agreed together and with each other to violate the narcotics laws of the United States.”50 The indictment further alleged that Mr. Coke and others known and unknown, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly, did combine and conspire” to traffic in firearms.51
Interestingly, many Jamaican citizens, though perhaps unfamiliar with the provisions of the Treaty, repeatedly asserted that the Treaty could not apply to a Jamaican citizen, who had not resided in the United States and that only a citizen of the United States should be extradited from Jamaica to face charges in that country. Members of the Jamaican public complained that the Treaty could not have applied to Mr. Coke, because he had not traveled to the United States in furtherance of the alleged crimes. The Government of Jamaica refused the extradition request, stating among other things, that: (1) the Treaty provided defenses to Mr. Coke’s extradition;52 (2) it (the Government of Jamaica) needed additional evidence;53 (3) the evidence submitted in support of the Request violated Jamaican law including the Jamaican Telecommunications Intercept Act;54 and (4) the American courts’ interpretation of the Doctrine of Specialty cautioned and informed Jamaica’s decision to extradite Mr. Coke.55
Of course, Jamaica’s refusal to comply with the Request had far reaching economic,56 political57 and diplomatic consequences.58 An international treaty is a unique creature, because even where the letter of the treaty may prescribe or permit specific interpretations or conduct, the spirit of the treaty or a government’s past interpretation or enforcement may preclude the very conduct that the treaty facially permits.59 Therefore, even if the Treaty, on its face, allowed Jamaica to refuse the Request, some may argue that the spirit of the Treaty or Jamaica’s past enforcement of the Treaty barred it from adopting that position.60
Did The Jamaican Government Have Legal Grounds For Refusing The Extradition Request?
Was Mr. Coke a Person Defined in the Treaty and Therefore Subject to Extradition Though Not a Citizen of the United States?
As stated herein above, the Treaty was signed in 1983 and went into effect in 1991.61 The Treaty supersedes the United States-United Kingdom Treaty on Extradition of 1931, which was made applicable to Jamaica, a former British colony, in 1935.62 The United States wanted to ensure that the Treaty was broad enough to sweep with its ambit Jamaican citizens charged (not merely convicted) with an extraditable offense,63 and Jamaican citizens, who committed crimes outside the borders of Jamaica. That, of course, in the halls of the Government of the United States, is the spirit of the Treaty. The spirit of the Treaty, as declared by the parties thereto, also includes international cooperation to combat crime and bring narco-traffickers and drug runners to justice.64
To accomplish the spirit of the Treaty, Article I of the Treaty provides:
ARTICLE I
Obligation to Extradite
The Contracting Parties agree to extradite to each other, subject to the provisions of this Treaty:
Persons whom the competent authorities in the Requesting State have charged with an extraditable offense [sic] committed within its territory; or
Persons who have been convicted in the Requesting State of such an offence and are unlawfully at large.
With respect to an offence committed outside the territory of the Requesting State, the Requested State shall grant extradition, subject to the provisions of this Treaty, if there is jurisdiction under the laws of both States for the punishment of such an offense in corresponding circumstances.
Without more, the foregoing appears to have imposed upon Jamaica the legal obligation to comply with the Request. Indeed, the Government of the United States was fairly certain that, at the time it made the Request, Mr. Coke was a person whom it had charged with a crime committed within its territory. Indeed, it has been the long held position of the United States Supreme Court that where, without limitation, an extradition treaty refers to “person,” the word person shall encompass citizens of the United States and the other party to the Treaty.65 In Charlton v. Kelly, the United States Supreme Court, interpreting the Extradition Treaty Between the United States and Italy, emphatically rejected the notion that “under principles of international law, citizens are [not] to be regarded as embraced within an extradition treaty unless expressly included.”66 The word persons, the Court opined, etymologically includes citizens as well as those who are not. 67 Consequently, it has been the understanding in the United States for almost one hundred years that “persons” includes citizens.”68 Moreover, “in respect to the persons to be surrendered, the extradition treaties of the United States all employ the general term persons, or all persons. Hence, where no express exception is made, the treaties warrant no distinction as to nationality.”69
The foregoing conclusion is not merely based in American jurisprudence. Instead, it is soundly rooted in principles of international law.70 The Jamaican government could not reasonably argue that the word “persons”, as used and described in the Treaty, does not include Jamaican citizens. Indeed, such an argument would be antithetical to the spirit of international cooperation in the fight against crime to which Jamaica is dedicated.71 “Jamaica in fulfillment [sic] of its obligations under the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (the Vienna Convention) has enacted the Mutual Assistance (Criminal Matters) Act, 1995 (MACMA). “Th[at] is the primary domestic legislation that guides Jamaica’s mutual legal assistance to foreign countries.”72 The MACMA gives the Jamaican government very broad latitude in assisting other nations in combatting international drug trafficking.
Moreover, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties mandates that states should not “defeat the object and purpose of a treaty prior to its entry into force.”73 Certainly then, Jamaica had a heightened obligation to effectuate the object and purpose of the Treaty which had been in force for more than a decade.74 That conclusion, of course, is further supported by the Vienna Convention which provides that “[a] treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given the terms of the Treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.”75 Consequently, there should be no doubt as to ordinary meaning to be given to the term “persons,”76 and any conclusion that Mr. Coke was not a “person” within the Treaty is merely one that seeks to avoid a good faith interpretation of the Treaty and patently ignore the Treaty’s object and purpose.
The claim that the word persons as used in the Treaty applies only to American citizens is also belied by the very Jamaican law which gives force to the application and enforcement of the Treaty in Jamaica—The Jamaican Extradition Act of 1991.77 That act is conspicuously devoid of any language describing or defining “persons” as citizens of the United States.78 In fact, during the last two decades, pursuant to the Jamaican Extradition Act, Jamaica extradited more than ten persons to the United States, including, but not limited to, the well-known cases of Leebert Ramsharam and Donovan Williams.79 Consequently, at no time, heretofore, did the Jamaican government even remotely suggest that the Treaty applied only to the extradition of American Citizens.80
The Jamaican Extradition Act repeatedly uses the word persons. For example, that act in pertinent part provides:
6. Subject to the provisions of this Act, a person found in Jamaica who is accused of an extradition offence in any approved State or who is alleged to be unlawfully at large after conviction of such an offence in any such State may be arrested and returned to that State as provided by this Act.
Of course, the Jamaican Parliament could have written the Act to state that anyone who is accused of an extradition offense and who when found in Jamaica is a citizen of the United States or other country may be returned to the United States or other country. The Jamaican Parliament did not.81
That Mr. Coke is indeed a person contemplated by and described in the Treaty is bolstered by the Jamaican Government’s interpretation of the word persons in other treaties wherein the purpose and spirit is to also foster international cooperation against crime and drug trafficking. For example, in 1989, Jamaica and the United States entered into the Treaty Between the Government of the United States of America and The Government of Jamaica On Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (“MLA”).82 In fact, much of the evidence that the Government of the United States obtained in its prosecution of the case against Mr. Coke was obtained via cooperation with Jamaican officials who responded to and complied with requests made pursuant to the MLA.83
The MLA provides in pertinent parts as follows:
ARTICLE 1
The Contracting Parties undertake to assist each other, upon request and in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty, in investigations and proceedings for criminal law enforcement purposes.
Assistance pursuant to this Treaty shall include:
locating persons; …
ARTICLE 4
Requests for assistance shall normally be in writing and if made otherwise shall be communicated in written form within a period of time to be agreed upon by the Central Authorities….
3. To the extent necessary and possible, a request shall include:
Available information on the identity and whereabouts of a person to be located;
the identity and location of a person to be served, that person’s relationship to the proceedings, and the manner in which service is to be made;
the identity and location of a person from whom evidence is sought;….
The MLA, like the Jamaican Extradition Act, is conspicuously devoid of any provision defining the word person as a citizen of the United States. As a result, the argument offered by Jamaicans that the Treaty does not apply to Mr. Coke is in no way supported by law. That argument, is instead, summarily dismissed as an impassioned cry from those, who for economic and/or political reasons, wished to have Mr. Coke remain in Jamaica.
Did The Treaty And The Act Provide The Jamaican Government With Defenses To The Extradition of Mr. Coke?
The inquiry into whether the Jamaican government was obligated to extradite Mr. Coke does not and should not end at a determination that he was a person under the Treaty. In fact, the Jamaican government argued that pursuant to the Treaty, it could deny the Extradition Request. Of course, unless a country has obligated itself, pursuant to a treaty to perform some act or allow some action, it, as a sovereign state, is free to make decisions that it deems in the best interest of the state84 and its citizens although those decisions may disappoint or sometimes anger other sovereigns that would have preferred a different result.85 86 Hence, the question that must logically follow is whether the Government of Jamaica, in the Treaty, unconditionally obligated itself to extradite every individual for whom the United States Government seeks extradition. In short, the answer to that question is no. Article VII of the Treaty emphasizes that each state has tremendous latitude in deciding whether to deliver its own nationals to the Requesting State.
Article VII of the Treaty provides:
Neither Contracting Party shall be bound to deliver up its own nationals but the executive authority of the Requested State shall, if not prevented by the laws of that State, have the power to deliver them up if, in its discretion, it be deemed proper to do so.
Extradition shall not be refused on the ground that the fugitive is a national of the Requested State if the fugitive is also a national of the Requesting State.
If Extradition is not granted for an offence pursuant to paragraph (1), the Requested State shall, if it has jurisdiction over the offence, submit the case to its highest competent authorities for decision as to prosecution, in according with the law of that State.
(Emphasis added)
“Treaties, like statutes, must be construed by giving their terms their ordinary meaning….”87 Paragraph (1) unambiguously states that neither the United States nor Jamaica is unconditionally obligated to comply with extradition requests from either party. In fact, American jurisprudence has consistently recognized that where a treaty has employed the language in Article VII, Paragraph (1) of the Treaty, the United States has the discretion to refuse the requesting state’s extradition request, and the United States “has both granted and denied the surrender of American nationals under a treaty of [that] type.”88
Interestingly, the Jamaican Extradition Act, which also governs extradition proceedings in Jamaica, also provides great latitude for Jamaica to refuse extradition of one of its citizens.89 Section 7(5) of the Act states that the “Minister may, in his discretion, refuse to extradite a fugitive on the grounds that the fugitive is a citizen of Jamaica.”90 Likewise, Section 12(1) of the Act states:
Where a person is committed to await his extradition and is not discharged by order of the Supreme Court, the minister may, by warrant, order him to be extradited to the approved state by which the request for the extradition was made unless the extradition of that person is prohibited, or prohibited for the time being, by Section 7 or by this section, or the minister decides under this section to make no such order in his case.
As a result, the question for discussion may properly have been whether Jamaica should have complied with the request—not whether it was obligated to do so.91 Moreover, that Sections 7(5) and 12(1) of the Act state that the Minister may use discretion in extraditing Jamaican citizens to the United States negatives the claims that Prime Minister Golding usurped the powers of the Jamaican courts.92 Undeniably, it was Dorothy Lightbourne, Jamaica’s then Minister of Justice, who, believing that Mr. Coke’s constitutional rights were breached, refused to sign the Request for Mr. Coke.93 “Parliament chose to give discretionary authority to the minister of justice. It is the minister who must consider the good faith and honor of [her] country in its relation with other states. It is the minister who has the expert knowledge of the political ramifications of an extradition request.”94 It may be argued then that in pressuring Prime Minister Golding to sign the Request, the United States government was, in fact, asking the Prime Minister to usurp the laws of Jamaica, ignore the delegation of powers within his cabinet and invade the province of the minister of justice.
But even if one argues that Prime Minister Golding, not Minister Lightbourne, was the ultimate executive, and that he could have executed the Request, that argument does not escape the plain meaning of the Treaty which affords each country unfettered discretion in refusing to comply with extradition requests. The United States, where necessary, has never ignored that it has such broad discretion. In fact, [t]oday, [in the United States], the ability of the executive branch to reject the results of the extradition hearing is taken for granted.”95 Consequently, although the United States Supreme Court once held, that where extradition is sought pursuant to a valid treaty, a petitioner cannot prevent extradition simply by alleging that … the processes… of the foreign country fail[] to accord with constitutional guarantees, … [t]he Department of State has the discretion to deny extradition on humanitarian grounds, if it appear that it would be unsafe to surrender a person to foreign authorities.96 97
Did The Jamaican Government Rationally Rely On Doctrine Of Specialty In Refusing To Sign The Request?
Jamaican Government Raises Specialty as a Possible Reason for Not Extraditing Mr. Coke to the United States.
In October 2009, the Government of Jamaica stated that it would not hastily comply with United States Government’s request to extradite Mr. Coke to New York.98 Minister Lightbourne, the Jamaican Attorney General and Minister of Justice stated that caution and deliberation were required because, “as a result of the hasty and precipitous action of the former minister of justice, a Jamaican national was improperly and illegally extradited to the US in 1992” 99 The Jamaican national to whom she referred was Richard “Storyteller” Morrison. The Jamaican Government further explained that “[d]espite considerable efforts, [it] was not able to secure the return of [Mr. Morrison] to enable the breach to be remedied, [and] the error was compounded when [Mr. Morrison] was tried in the US in a manner which further breached the provisions of the Treaty.” 100
Specialty And The Case of Richard “Story Teller” Morrison
In 1991, Richard “Storyteller” Morrison, like Jim Brown, was in custody in a penitentiary in Kingston Jamaica, where he awaited, pursuant to Jamaican law, an appeal of an order of extradition to South Florida.101 As a result of an administrative error, the documents which evidenced Mr. Morrison’s intent to appeal had been misplaced, and Mr. Morrison was prematurely surrendered to the agents of the United States, who took him to the United States.102 At that time, Mr. Morrison, pursuant to Jamaican law, intended to appeal his extradition order to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.103
The Jamaican government, through multiple diplomatic efforts, sought Mr. Morrison’s return to Jamaica, arguing, among other things, that Mr. Morrison was not legally extradited, and the United States’ refusal to return him to Jamaica comprised a breach of the Treaty.104 Interestingly, the Jamaican government’s strident demand for Mr. Morrison’s return to Jamaica did not raise the ire or eye of most Jamaicans, because the Jamaican government, at that time, was led by Prime Minister Percival Patterson, whose political party, the PNP, was not aligned to Tivoli Gardens, the garrison from which Mr. Morrison and his colleagues operated.
The Government of Jamaica and Mr. Morrison sought assistance from the American courts, but their challenges to the United States’ refusal to return Mr. Morrison were unsuccessful. For example, in Government of Jamaica v. United States of America,105 the Government of Jamaica filed an Emergency Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus and Request for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief, which was individually adopted by Mr. Morrison.106 The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida conducted an evidentiary hearing on the Emergency Petition.107 “At the hearing, the Government of Jamaica presented evidence on the question of whether the extradition of Richard Morrison from Jamaica was in violation of Jamaican law.”108 In that case, “[o]n or about October 31, 1989, pursuant the Extradition Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom (which remained in force and applied to Jamaica, a former British territory), the United States presented an extradition request for [Mr.] Morrison to the Jamaican Foreign Ministry.”109
In February 19, 1991, a Jamaican magistrate concluded that it would be lawful to extradite Mr. Morrison, and, as a result, Mr. Morrison was detained in prison.110 Subsequently, Morrison filed in the Supreme Court of Jamaica a notice of his intent to apply to Her Majesty in Council (hereinafter the “Privy Council” for leave to appeal the Full Court’s decision; however, the notice of intent to appeal was inadvertently included in another person’s file.111
Consequently, on or about June 13, 1991, the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via diplomatic note, advised the United States Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica that Morrison had been surrendered prematurely and that the Government of Jamaica requested his immediate return.112 In that case, the Government of Jamaica, argued that “because Morrison was mistakenly extradited before his appeal to the Privy Council was complete, the extradition was not in accordance with Jamaican law and, therefore, not in accordance with the Extradition Treaty in effect between the United States and the sovereign nation of Jamaica.”113 There, the Middle District of Florida concluded that Morrison should not be returned to Jamaica because the court was uncertain that any Jamaica law had been broken and to the extent that any Jamaican law had been broken, the Government of the United States was not the cause of the violation.114 The court further concluded that the weight and deference should properly be given to the opinion of the executive branch. 115 The executive branch refused to return Mr. Morrison to Jamaica.
In Morrison v. Lappin,116 Richard Morrison argued that because the indictment upon which extradition was based had been filed in the Southern District of Florida, his subsequent indictment, trial and sentencing in the Middle District of Florida violated the Principle of Specialty. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, to which Morrison previously appealed the decision of the Middle District of Florida, concluded that although the Middle District of Florida enhanced his sentence, the doctrine of specialty had not been violated.117 Notwithstanding the fact that Morrison argued on appeal that he was not permitted to raise the defense of specialty until after the Government of Jamaica raised it and that the United States Government suppressed evidence that the Government of Jamaica asserted the doctrine of specialty as the basis for his return to Jamaica, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal determined that he lacked standing to challenge personal jurisdiction in the Middle District because he did not raise the defense of specialty during trial.118
Explaining the Doctrine of Specialty
“Specialty requires that an extradited defendant be tried for the crimes on which Extradition [sic] was granted, and none other.”119 That notion is soundly rested in principles of international comity.120 Consequently, specialty is a manifestation that the states have agreed that the defendant should not be subject to arbitrary prosecution by the state to which the defendant is surrendered.121 In some federal circuits, “specialty is prima facie self-executing and may be raised by a defendant as an affirmative defense to prosecution.”122 Nonetheless, the surrendering government may waive the application of the doctrine of specialty and preclude the defendant’s right to escape prosecution.123 124 In other circuits, the converse is true and thus, the defendant is not permitted to raise specialty as an affirmative defense “unless the surrendering government has objected to the prosecution.”125 Other courts have held that the doctrine of specialty is a defense that merely limits the jurisdiction of the court, and, as a result, the defendant is precluded from raising it at trial for the first time.126
The Jamaican Government’s Concern Regarding the Application of the Doctrine of Specialty as a Defense in American Courts
At the outset, one must note that the Government of Jamaica did not raise the doctrine of specialty as a defense to Mr. Coke’s extradition, it merely stated that it believed that the doctrine had been violated in the case of Richard Morrison and that it wanted, in light of American law, to ensure that the doctrine would not be violated in Mr. Coke’s case. The Government of Jamaica’s concern was exacerbated by two things. First, notwithstanding the fact that Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal seemed to recognize that a defendant may raise the defense of specialty where the sending state has raised or has standing to raise it,127 that court ruled that Mr. Morrison could not raise the defense as a challenge to the trial court’s jurisdiction.128 Second, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the court in which Mr. Coke was indicted) has apparently adopted the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ position that the doctrine of specialty is not violated where the sentence of the extradited person is enhanced or a grand jury returns a superseding indictment that enlarges the charge for which the extradited person was extradited to the United States.129
For example, in Antwi v. United States, the Government of the United States charged Joseph Antwi, a Ghanaian citizen, with, among other things, “conspiracy to distribute or possess with the intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin and more than five kilograms of cocaine.”130 The Government of the United States submitted an affidavit in support of the extradition request that it tendered to the Ghanaian government.131 In the affidavit, the Government of the United States explained that conspiracy is separate from the substantive charges and that a defendant may be convicted of conspiracy although not convicted of the substantive crimes.132
Antwi was extradited to the United States, and on June 20, 2002, a jury convicted him of conspiracy to distribute or to possess with the intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin.133 In a subsequent habeas petition filed on July 19, 2004, Antwi challenged his conviction arguing among other things that his “presence in the United States was secured by the Government in violation of the bilateral extradition treaty governing relations between the United States and Ghana, and its associated law principles of specialty and dual criminality.”134
In its threshold determination of whether Antwi had standing to raise the doctrine of specialty, the district court noted that although the circuit courts that have addressed the question are split, and “[t]he more persuasive analysis … finds that extradited parties do have standing to raise that defense,135 and that since Ghana did not waive the doctrine of specialty in the case, Antwi’s standing to raise the defense was abrogated.136 In that case, like the Extradition Treaty between the Government of the United States and the Government of Jamaica, the applicable extradition treaty between the United States and Ghana incorporated the principle of specialty. Consequently, that treaty in pertinent part stated:
A person surrendered can in no case be kept in custody or be brought to trial in the territories of the High Contracting Party to whom the surrender has been made for any other crime or offence, or on account of any other matters, than those for which the extradition shall have taken place, until he has been re-stored, or had an opportunity of returning, to the territories of the High Contracting Party by whom he has been surrendered.137
In light of the foregoing provision of the Treaty, Answi argued that because the affidavit of extradition stated that he earned up to $100,000 from heroin sales, any conviction for more than what the affidavit stated constituted a violation of the extradition treaty because his conviction was “not within the scope of the same charges for which extradition was granted.”138 Answi also argued that the doctrine of specialty was violated because, as a result of a finding that he committed perjury during the trial, the court enhanced his sentence for obstruction of justice.139 The district court rejected Answi’s arguments and concluded that he was prosecuted for the “same crimes that formed the basis of the extradition request.”140 The court also concluded that Answi was not charged with a separate crime of obstruction of justice; instead, “the sentence for the crime for which he was committed was merely enhanced,” and that the [doctrine] of specialty does not prevent the [United States] from bringing a charge based on conduct that occurs after extradition.”141
To be sure, the Extradition Treaty recognizes and incorporates the doctrine of specialty. Specifically, Article XIV of the treaty provides:142
Article XIV
Rule of Specialty
A person extradited under this Treaty may only be detained, tried or
punished in the Requesting State for the offence [sic] for which extradition is granted, or –
For a lesser offence [sic] proved by the facts before the court of committal, or in the case of extradition pursuant to Article XV, any lessor offence [sic] disclosed by the facts upon which the request is based; or
For an offence [sic] committed after the extradition; or
An offence [sic] in respect to which the executive authority of the Requested State, in accordance with its law, consents to the person’s detention, trial or punishment; and for the purposes of this sub-paragraph the Requested State may require the submission of the documents mentioned in Article VIII or the written views of the extradited person with respect to the offence [sic] committed, or both,….
A person extradited under this Treaty may not be extradited to a third State unless—–
The Requested State consents; or
The circumstances are such that he could have been dealt with in the Requesting State pursuant to sub-paragraph (d) of paragraph (1)
Likewise, The Jamaican Extradition Act, contemplates and incorporates the doctrine of specialty.143 Specifically, the Act states in pertinent part as follows:
(3) A person shall not be extradited to an approved State or be committed to or kept in custody for the purposes of such extradition, unless provision is made by the law of that State, or by an arrangement made with that State, for securing that he will not-
(a) be tried or detained with a view to trial for or in respect of any offence committed before his extradition under this Act other than-
(i) the offence in respect of which his extradition is requested;….
(5) The Minister may, in his discretion, refuse to extradite
a fugitive on the ground that the fugitive is a citizen of Jamaica,….
The Treaty and the Act unequivocally precludes any person from being tried for a greater offense than that or those for which he was extradited.144 Moreover, the Treaty and the Act give the Government of the of Jamaica the discretion to refuse extradition of one of its citizens.145 Certainly, the Government of Jamaica, which felt embarrassed and affronted by the Government of the United States’ refusal to return Mr. Morrison had the legal right to refuse extradition of Mr. Coke until it determined how and for what he would be tried in the United States.146 Certainly, the Government of Jamaica, which had the discretion to refuse extradition of one of its citizens, could ask for more evidence to determine whether the Government of the United States would enlarge or enhance the scope of the charges which formed the basis of the extradition request.
CONCLUSION
To install confidence in the public, auditors are required to be independent in appearance and independent in fact. Prime Minister Golding may have truly been independent in fact, and his administration may have desired to ensure that letter of the Treaty was enforced; however, he and his administration were not independent in appearance. Prime Minister Golding’s administration, it would seem, spent thousands of dollars and used great resources to fight or delay compliance with the Request for Mr. Coke in a manner inconsistent with its handling of other extradition requests for Jamaican citizens indicted for the crimes listed in Mr. Coke’s indictment.147 To further complicate matters, Prime Minister Golding seemed to have blurred the lines between his role as chief executive of Jamaica and chief executive of the Jamaica Labor Party.148 Prime Minister Golding may have forgotten that although the letter of the Treaty permitted his position, the spirit of the Treaty may have required a different approach. In fact, he and his administration were required to juxtapose the interests of Mr. Coke with the country’s interest in fighting transnational crime and corruption. Indeed, that is a complex task that requires/required a multifaceted approach, because the constitutional rights of citizens is no less important that a country’s obligation to international treaties and global cooperation.
Nonetheless, it is certainly unfair to conclude that the administration of former Prime Minister Bruce Golding refused to comply with the Extradition Request for Christopher “Dudus” Coke solely because Mr. Coke and or his father had been leaders of the Tivoli Gardens community and allegedly the leaders of the Shower Posse that operated from that community. As described above, the Treaty and the Jamaican Extradition Act provide(d) the Government of Jamaica with unfettered discretion to refuse extradition of one of its citizens.149 Furthermore, as a sovereign state, which must protect the constitutional rights of its citizens, Jamaica, via Prime Minister Golding, could and should ensure that the information supplied in the Request was sufficient to fulfill the requirements of the Treaty.150 Moreover, because a previous Jamaican administration was severely criticized when it blundered in the handling of the extradition request for Richard Morrison, who was later deprived full due process under Jamaican law, Prime Minister Golding’s administration may have simply wanted to ensure that it did not repeat the same errors.151
1. Mark Andrew Sherman, United States Drug Control Policy, Extradition, and the Rule of Law in Columbia, 15 Nova L. Rev. 661, 662 (1991); Controlled Substances Act of 1970, 21 U.S.C. § 801 (2011); Uniform Controlled Substances Act (1994) § 201; United Nations: Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, Dec. 20, 1988, U.N. Doc. E/CONF. 82/15, Corr. 1 and Corr. 2, reprinted in 28 I.L.M. 493 (1989); Controlled Substances Penalties Amendment Act of 1984, 21 U.S.C. § 841 (b) (2011); Chemical Diversion and Trafficking Act of 1988, 21 U.S.C. § 830 (2011).
2. Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, H.R. 91-1444 91st Cong., 2nd Sess. (1970).
3. Extradition Treaty with the Republic of Columbia, U.S-Colom., Sept. 14, 1979, S. Treaty Doc. No. 97-8 art. II¶ 4 (1979), including as extraditable offenses, attempts and conspiracies to engage in drug trafficking.
(4) Subject to the conditions set forth in paragraphs (1), (2) and (3) extradition shall also be granted:
(a) For attempting to commit an offense or participating in the association to commit offenses as provided by the laws of the United States.
(b) for any extraditable offense when, for the purpose of granting jurisdiction to either Contracting Party [sic], transportation of person or property, the use of the mails or other means of carrying out interstate or foreign commerce is also an elements of the specific offense….
APPENDIX
Schedule of Offenses
21. Offenses against the laws relating to the traffic in, possession, or production or manufacture of,[sic] narcotic drugs, cannabis, hallucinogenic drugs, cocaine and its derivatives, and other substances which produce physical or psychological dependence.
22. Offenses against public health, such as the illicit manufacture of or traffic in chemical products or substances injurious to health.
4. Extradition Treaty with the Republic of Bolivia, U.S.-Bol., Jun. 27, 1995, S. Treaty Doc. No. 104-22 art. III (1995) (making drug trafficking a mandatory extraditable offense) providing:
Neither Party [sic] shall be obligated to extradite its own nationals, except when the extradition request refers to…:
(b) murder; voluntary manslaughter; kidnapping; aggravated assault; rape; … offenses related to the illicit traffic in controlled substances…. (emphasis added).
5. Richard J. Barnett, Extradition Treaty Improvements to Combat Drug Trafficking, 15 Ga. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 285 (1985).
6. Extradition Treaty with Jamaica, U.S.-Jam, Jun. 14, 1983, S. Treaty Doc. No. 98–18 (1984) [hereinafter Treaty].
7. See Desmond “Milo” Bond, Letter to the Editor, Is the Extradition Treaty Fair?, Jamaica Observer, Apr. 18, 2010, available at http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/letters/Authority.
8. See Ken Chaplin, Op. Ed., Justice Minister Correct in Coke’s Extradition Case, Jamaica Observer (Apr. 6, 2010), http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Ken-Chaplin-April-6—Minister-correct-in-extradition-matter_7521888.
9. See Daraine Luton, ‘Dudus Defence’, The Gleaner, Mar. 3, 2010, available at http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100303/lead/lead1.html (quoting Prime Minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding: “I am not defending the wrongdoing of any person but, if I have to pay a political price for it, I am going to uphold a position that constitutional rights do not begin at Liguanea.”) The American embassy in Jamaica is located in Liguanea, a subdivision of Kingston.
10. See Clayton Morgan, The Extradition Treaty Between Jamaica and the USA, RisingStarsTV.Net Blog (Nov. 25 2009, 12:30 PM), http://www.risingstarstv.net/profiles/blogs/the-extradition-treaty-between (discussing that “There is a view that the treaty has proved itself to be inimical to the interests of Jamaica. Space denies me the opportunity to submit a detailed exposition of the negative effects of the treaty on our sovereignty and the due process of law.”).
11. See Sherman, supra note 1, at 664.
Thus, the United States drug control relationship with many third world nations is actually one of at least partial coercion. Naturally, such arm-twisting by any nation in pursuit of a foreign policy objective is bound to upset the government with which that country must work, but which may have differing perspectives on, and approaches to, the same objective.
12. See Morgan, supra note 10.
13. See Bond, supra note 7; see also Morgan, supra note 10; John G. Kester, Some Myths of United States Extradition Law, 76 Geo. L.J. 1441, 1442 (1988) (“Conversely, extradition from another country to the United States for trial here may impose insuperable defense costs on the accused, and often means separation from witnesses, evidence, and other support that would make conviction less likely.”).
14. Warren v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (2003) EWHC 1177(stating: “it is in the interest of good international relations that a country honour [sic] its treaty obligations. This does not mean that a requesting state, which acts in breach of the spirit of the treaty, expects, as a matter of right, that the requested state is obligated to honour [sic] its request under the treaty.”).
15. United States v. Lui Kin-Hong, 110 F.3d 103, 110 (2d Cir. 1997) (stating that treaties are to be enforced in the interest of friendly international relationships.); see also Warren, supra note 14 (stating, “Such international cooperation is all the more important in modern times. . . . It is in the interest of good international relations that a country honor its treaty obligations….”).
16. Sherman, supra note 1, at 664; Gary Spaulding, Dorothy’s Defence, The Gleaner, Mar. 4, 2011, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110304/lead/lead1.html (quoting Senator Dorothy Lightbourne: “All I asked the US to do is to respect our laws. We are small and we are poor, but respect our laws.”.
17. Sherman, supra note 1, at 664; Dorothy Lightbourne Tried to Protect Dudus’ Rights, The Gleaner, Mar. 3, 2011, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/latest/article.php?id=26927.
18. Peter Abrahams, The Dreamers & the Armageddon Boys, in The Coyaba Chronicles: Reflections on the Black Experience in the 20th Century (2000).
The National Minimum Wage compelled employers of domestic workers to observe set base rates and hours and conditions of work. Before that law, domestic helpers were at the mercy of employers. A good employer might pay her household help reasonably well and allow for an eight-hour day, with every other weekend off on full pay. A bad employer might pay very little and insist on a twelve- or fourteen- or even sixteen-hour day with no weekends off.
19. Id.
His education programme, in which the children of employers and their employees would go to the same schools, sit side-by-side in the same classes, unsettled many middle-class parents who had spent a life-time working to separate themselves from the lower classes and move up to the upper classes.
20. Id.
21. Casey Gane-McCalla, How the CIA Created the Jamaican Shower Posse, Newsone, (Jun. 3, 2010, 2:06 PM), http://newsone.com/world/casey-gane-mccalla/how-the-cia-created-the-jamaican-shower-posse/.
22. Id.
23. Abrahams, supra note 18.
Some of us in the media who had watched Seaga’s rise, who had witnessed his handling of the JBC strike, were concerned about the man’s attitude to the democratic process. The 1962 election campaign in West Kingston was a brutal and savage contest in which the bullet was used to influence the outcome of the ballot. When it was over and Dudley Thompson and his supporters had been routed, the PNP, as a political party was completely wiped out in West Kingston. There was no room for it to regroup and rebuild. More than thirty years on, there is still no viable two-party system functioning in that constituency. The PNP — in or out of office — has fielded token candidates who have routinely been trounced by staggering majorities. The place had been turned into a closed, solid and permanent power base for one man.
24. Gary Brana-Shute, Narco-Criminality in the Caribbean: Global Problems in Small Places, http://librarycontentdm.mona.uwi.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Crime&CISOPTR=511&CISOBOX=1&REC=8 (last updated Nov. 17, 2011).
25. Gane-McCalla, supra note 21.
26. Id.
27. Brana-Shute, supra note 24, at 5 (“There is tendency for the gangs … led by th[eir] dons to realign with their former political patrons during election years when political parties need support, votes, and financial contributions, and the gunmen need political protection and insurance for the future.”)
28. Id.; Abrahams, supra note 18.
29. Sherrian Gray, Trends in Urban Crime and Violence in Kingston, Jamaica, 6. (2007) available at http://www.unihabitat.org.grhs/2007 (last visited Aug. 17, 2011) Garrisons significantly contributed to increasing crime rates in Jamaica. For example, during the 1980 nine-month long election campaign, gangs from political garrisons waged a murderous war throughout the country. In that year, the police recorded 889 murders (there were only 351 in 1979) and 643 murders were caused by gun-related violence. In 2005, Jamaica had the highest murder rate in the world and the gangs involved in drug-trafficking were substantial contributors to that statistic.; see also Mark P. Sullivan, Cong. Research Serv., RS22372, Jamaica: Political and Economic Conditions and U.S. Relations 2 (1006).
30. In the early nineties, Jamaica supposedly earned more from marijuana exports than from other exports. See J. Richard Barnett, Extradition Treaty Improvements to Combat Drug Trafficking, 15 Ga. J. Int’l & Comp. Law, 285, 297 (1985).
31. Id. at 295.
32. Id.
33. Id.
34. Id.
35. See Barnett, supra note 30, at 297.
36. Brana-Shute, supra note 24, at 5 (discussing “Jamaican possess originally controlled the importation, distribution, and sale of marijuana at the retail level in the United States as early as the late 1970s. They have since enlarged their menu to include cocaine, crack, heroin, carachi, PCP, methamphetamine, and ‘ice.’”)
37. The Shower Posse, Trivester News, May 16, 2010, available at http://www.trivester.com/world/americas/caribbean/jamaica/feature/jamaica-labour-party/shower-possee-gang/100516/.
38. Jamaica became a logistical respite for drug traffickers destined for the United States.
39. It is not certain whether the Shower Posse obtained its name because of its members’ style of “showering” rivals with bullets or because its members were supporters and enforcers for the JLP, which promised during its 1980 campaign to bring showers of deliverance.
40. The Shower Posse allegedly committed more than one thousand murders throughout the United States. Ed Pilkington, Christopher ‘Dudus” Coke Handed 23-year US Jail Term for Drug Traficking, The Guardian, June 8, 2012, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/08/christopher-dudus-coke-jail-term; J.P. Lane, There’s an Element of Truth to Every Fictional Tale, Good Reads Blog (May 26, 2012, 12:28), http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2504441-there-s-an-element-of-truth-to-every-fictional-tale.
41. Molly McConville, Note: A Global War On Drugs: Why The United States Should Support the Prosecution of Drug Traffickers in the International Criminal Court, 37 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 75, 77 (2000).
The United States as the Largest importer and consumer of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances in the world, increasingly feels the effects of international drug trafficking. Drug trafficking constitutes a unique and urgent threat to the security of the U.S. because it touches all ethnic and socioeconomic groups and infiltrates all communities, including cities, suburbs and rural areas…. [T]he work of international criminals and the drug use that results, wreak havoc within the borders of the United States and [is manifested] in the violence and ruined lives that plague so many of our communities.
42. Barnett, supra note 5, at 290.
43. Id.
44. The Extradition Act, (1991) (Jam.), available at http://www.oas.org/juridico/mla/en/jam/en_jam-ext-law-ext1993.pdf [hereinafter Jamaica Extradition Act].
45. Extradition Treaty with Jamaica, Letter of Submittal, U.S.-Jam, Jun. 14, 1983, S. Treaty Doc. No. 98–18 (1984).
46. K.C. Samuels, Jamaica’s First President–Dudus-1992-2012 His Rise–His Reign–His Demise 162-201 (2011); Maxine Williams, Christopher ‘Dudus” Coke Extradition Entangles Local and International Law, The Guardian (UK), June 2, 2010, available http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/02/christopher-dudus-coke-extradition-law?INTCMP=SRCH.
47. Id.
48. Brana-Shute, supra note 24, 5-6.
49. Samuels, supra note 46, at 162; Williams, supra note 46.
50. Sealed Indictment at 1, United States v. Coke, No. S15 07 Cr. 971 (RPP) (S.D.N.Y. ) available at http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/files/coke-christopher-michael-s15-indictment-1.pdf.
51. Id.
52. See, e.g., Hugh Wilson, Extradition and Ministerial Discretion, The Gleaner, Mar. 17, 2010, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100317/lead/lead7.html.
53. Id.
54PM Defends His Handling of the ‘Dudus’ Extradition, RJR News, Sept. 12, 2010, available at http://rjrnewsonline.com/news/local/pm-defends-his-handling-%E2%80%98dudus%E2%80%99-extradition/; Wilson, supra note 52; Gary Spaulding, Lightbourne Biased In Handling ‘Dudus” Extradition Case-KD, The Gleaner, Mar. 11, 2011, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110311/lead/lead4.html.
55. Lloyd Williams, Jamaica, US and Extradition, Jamaica Gleaner, Apr. 8, 2004, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040408/news/news1.html; Gary Spaulding, Jamaica’s Diplomatic Rows With the U.S., BN VILLAGE, Apr. 13, 2010, available at http://www.bnvillage.co.uk/f120/jamaicas-diplomatic-rows-u-s-104990.html.
56. See US Embassy Says Visa Cancellations Not Political, Jamaica Observer, Apr. 15, 2010 available at http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/embassy-cancels-visas-for-jamaicans.
57. Jade Brown, Counternarcotics, Terrorism & Intelligence after Action: The Rise And Fall Of Dudus Coke, HStoday.us, Oct.1, 2010, available at http://www.hstoday.us/focused-topics/counternarcotics-terrorism-intelligence/single-article-page/after-action-the-rise-and-fall-of-dudus-coke/71b9c790a8949baecb9800e93bd730f9.html.
58. See Desmond Allen, New Twist in Dudus Affair: Canadian Newspaper Raps Golding on “Dudus” Affair, Jamaica Observer, (April 15, 2010), http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/US-Dudus-continues_7529858; see also Luke Douglas, More “Dudus” Fears: JMA, JEA, Mandeville Ministers Troubles about “Dudus” Impasse, Jamaica Observer, (Mar. 22, 1010), http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/More–Dudus–fears-3-22-2010
59. Wilson, supra note 52. “The foundation on which the extradition treaty is constructed is to fight transnational organi[z]ed crime and to ensure that those who allegedly commit criminal offences in a foreign state are not immune from prosecution.”
60. Paul Henry, Manatt was Working for Gov’t on Dudus, Caribbean Star, http://www.caribbeanstar.tv/trending/16-in-the-music/131-manatt-was-working-for-govt-on-dudus- (last visited Aug. 9, 2012).
61. Treaty, supra note 6; Henry, supra note 60.
62. Extradition Treaty with Jamaica, supra note 45.
63. Id.
64. That spirit of cooperation between states has grown and evolved. See. e.g., U.N. High Comm’r for Refugees, The Interface between Extradition and Asylum, 2 PPLA/2003/05 (2003) (by Sibylle Kapferer) http://www.unhcr.org/3fe84fad4.pdf.
[T]he international legal framework within which States [sic] determine whether or not to extradite has undergone fundamental changes. With respect to a number of particularly serious crimes, developments in international criminal law, humanitarian [law,] and human rights law since 1945 have provided States [sic] with a basis for extradition in the absence of pre-existing extradition agreements and in some cases established an obligation to Extradite….
65. Charlton v. Kelly, 229 U.S. 447, 465 (1913).
66. Id.
67. Id.
68. Id. at 468 citing John Bassett Moore, A Treatise on Extradition and Interstate Rendition, 170 (Vol. 1, General Books LLC 2009) (1891).
69. Id. (emphasis added).
70. Id. “The conclusion we reach is, that there is no principle of international law by which citizens are excepted out of an agreement to surrender persons, where no such exception is made in the Treaty itself.” (internal quotations omitted).
71. Mutual Assistance (Criminal Matters) Act, (1995) (Jam.) available at http://www.moj.gov.jm/laws/statutes/Mutual%20Assistant%20(Criminal%20Matters)%20Act.pdf.
72. Id.
73. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, art. 18, May 23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 [hereinafter Vienna Convention].
74. See Jamaica Extradition Act, supra note 44, at art. III; see also Extradition Treaty with Jamaica, supra note 45.
75. Vienna Convention, supra note 73.
76. Webster’s New World Dictionary 191 (1977) (person, n. 1. human being. 2. the body or self)
77. The Jamaican Extradition Act supra note 44.
78. Id.
79. WikiLeaks: Extradition of Drug Kingpin Nembhard – Not as Easy as it Looked, Yaadinfo Jamaica Blog, (July 28, 2008, 19:41 UTC), http://blogs.jamaicans.com/yaadinfo/2011/09/27/wikileaks-extradition-of-drug-kingpin-nembhard-not-as-easy-as-it-looked/; Howard Campbell, United States vs. its ‘Backyard’ – Washington Always Wins, The Gleaner, Mar. 14, 2010, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100314/lead/lead3.html.
80. Although it should be noted that the Government of Italy asserted that persons as described in its treaty with the United States did not include Italian citizens.
81. The Jamaican Extradition Act, supra note 44 at § 6.
82. See Treaty with Jamaica on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, U.S.-Jam., Jul. 7, 1989, S. Treaty Doc. 102-16 (1991).
83. Jamaicans Want Dudus Charged, Nation News, Sept. 6, 2011, available at http://www.nationnews.com/articles/view/jamaicans-want-dudus-charged/; Livern Barrett, Probe Dudus Here – PNP Pushes Case but Cop Ponders Whether Coke can be Charged Locally, Sept. 7 2011, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110907/lead/lead1.html.
84. Executive Discretion in Extradition, 62 Colum. L. Rev. 1313, 1313. (1962). “[T]he Secretary . . . [b]y virtue of his position . . . must consider not only the equities of the particular case but also the consequences of his decision upon our foreign relations.”
85. See id. (“Absent a treaty obligation, international law imposes no duty upon a country to deliver up a person who has sought asylum within its boundaries.”); see also United States v. Rauscher, 119 U.S. 407, 412-15 (1886); and Valentine v. United States ex rel Neidecker, 299 U.S. 5, 8 (1936); and Hilario v. United States, 854, F. Supp. 165, 173 (E.D.N.Y. 1994) (“The reason that the United States grants foreign extradition requests only pursuant to treaty is that Congress so provided by statute.”); U.N. GAOR, 59th Sess., Int. Law Comm., The Obligation to Extradite or Prosecute at 1, U.N. Doc. A/cn.4/579/Add.2 (June 5, 2007) (“The United States of America believes that its practice, and that of other countries, reinforces the view that there is not a sufficient basis in customary international law or State practice to formulate draft articles that would extend an obligation binding legal instruments that contain such obligations.”); The Interface Between Extradition and Asylum, supra note 64 (“International law does not establish a general duty to extradite. A legal obligation for one State [sic] (the Requested State) to surrender a person wanted by another State [sic] (the Requesting State) exists only on the basis of bilateral and multilateral extradition agreements . . . .”).
86. It should be noted that some countries’ laws provide for extradition absent an extradition agreement, but very often that willingness to extradite is specifically predicated on reciprocity. See, e.g., Austria S. 3 of the Law of Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance of 1979; See also Germany s. 5 of the Law on International Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of (December 23,1982).
87. See Hilario supra note 85; Vienna Convention, supra note 73, art. 32.
88. Id.; see also Valentine supra note 85; Charlton, supra note 65; Executive Discretion in Extradition, supra note 84 at 1322 n.68. “In 1947 and 1949, the State Department refused to surrender a total of four United States citizens to Mexico. In notes to the Mexican Ambassador, the Department invited the attention of the Mexican government to persistent refusal of Mexico to surrender its nationals.”.
89. Supra note 44.
90. Supra note 44 at sec. 12(1).
91. Wilson, supra note 52:
It is prima facie a breach of the citizen’s constitutional right . . . to be forcibly removed from his country where he has committed no infringement of its law to a foreign state on the basis of allegations. But this is not an absolute right and is subject to public interest consideration in fighting transnational crime and bringing fugitives to justice.” (emphasis added).
92. Jamaica Extradition Act, supra note 44
93. Gary Spaulding, Lightbourne Biased in handling ‘Dudus’ Extradition Case- KD, The Gleaner, Mar. 11, 2011, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110311/lead/lead4.html; Paul Henry, Lightbourne Blames US for ‘Dudus’ Impasse, Jamaica Observer, Mar. 8, 2011, available at http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Lightbourne-blames-US-hard-line-approach-for-Coke-impasse_8487963; Dorothy Lightbourne Tried to Protect Dudus’ Rights, Go-Jamaica, Mar. 3, 2011, available at http://go-jamaica.com/news/read_article.php?id=26927.
94. Idziak v. Canada, 3 S.C.R. 631, 659 (1992). See also Heath v. United States, Privy Council Appeal No. 6 of 2001, (E. Carib. Ct. App. June 19, 2002) (finding that where Governor General of St. Kitts delegated matters of foreign affairs to the minister of foreign affairs, requisitions for extradition issued from the minister to the magistrate were proper).
95. Cite to Virginia Law review article at page 24; United States v. Howard, 996 F.2d 1320, 1325 (1st Cir. 1993).
96. Compare United States v. Fernandez-Morris, 99 F. Supp. 2d 1358, 1366 (S.D. Fla. 1999), with Heath v. United States, Privy Council Appeal No. 58 of 2004, (E. Carib. Ct. App. Nov. 28, 2005) (citing Nankissoon Boodram v Attorney General (1996) 47 WIR 459, 495) (“The proper forum for a complaint about publicity is the trial court….), and Heath v. United States, Privy Council Appeal No. 58 of 2004, (E. Carib. Ct. App. Nov. 28, 2005) (citing Republic of Argentina v. Mellino) (1987) 1 SCR 536, 558 (stating “ Our courts must assume that the defendant will be given a fair trial in the foreign country. Matters of due process generally are to be left for the courts to determine at trial there as they would be if he were to be tried here. Attempts to preempt decisions on such matter … would directly conflict with principles of comity on which extradition is based.”)
97. Hague Conference on Private International Law, Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 25 Oct. 1980, Hague XXVIII, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3951c.htm [“Hague Treaty”]; Moreover, in a practical sense, the Elian Gonzales saga demonstrated that the executive branch of the United States, notwithstanding contrary ideas or desires of some, if not most of its citizens, will enforce the letter of international treaties. In that case, Janet Reno, then the Attorney General and executive authority of the United States concluded that The Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction must be followed and that Elian Gonzales should be returned to his father and allowed to return to Cuba. See also Marlene Moses & Jessica Uitto, The Hague Convention of Oct. 25, 1980, The Civl Aspects of International Child Abduction, 46 Tenn. Bar. J. 28, 33 (2011).
98. No ‘Dudus” Mistake – Lightbourne Fires Back at Critics, Declares Previous Gov’t’s Extradition Breaches will not be Repeated, The Gleaner, Oct. 30, 2009, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091030/lead/lead1.html.
99. Id.
100. Id.
[T]he current Opposition should be advised to take careful note of an undertaking given by its then Minister of National Security and Justice, [Mr.] K.D. Knight, in an address to Parliament on June 6, 1995 . . “I wish to give the assurance that my ministry will do everything in its power to ensure that the extradition process in Jamaica is carried out in a manner which is faithful not only to our inter-national obligations but also to the fundamental concepts of justice and fairness as enshrined in the [Jamaican] Constitution.”
Gary Spaulding, Jamaica’s diplomatic rows with the U.S., BN VILLAGE, Apr. 13, 2010, available at http://www.bnvillage.co.uk/f120/jamaicas-diplomatic-rows-u-s-104990.html (quoting Senator Dorothy Lightbourne: “It is to be recalled that as a result of the hasty and precipitous action of a former minister of justice, a Jamaican national was improperly and illegally extradited to the US in 1992.”).
101‘Dudus’ Nightmare, Starbroek News, Sept. 9, 2009, available at, http://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/news/regional/09/09/%E2%80%98dudus%E2%80%99-nightmare/; Lloyd Williams, supra note 55.
102. Lloyd Williams, supra note 55.
103. Id.
104. Id.
105. Gov’t of Jamaica v. United States, 770 F. Supp. 627 (M.D. Fla. 1991).
106. Id. at 628.
107. Id.
108. Id.
109. Id.
110. Gov’t of Jamaica v. United States, supra note 105.
111. Id.
112. Id.
113. Id.
114. Id.
115. Gov’t of Jamaica v. United States, supra note 105 (stating, “In the final analysis, this Court remains of the opinion that this is precisely the sort of instance in which deference should be afforded to the Executive Branch…. These are all considerations of political import which are singularly within the province of the Executive Branch”.).
116. Morrison v. Lappin, No. 4:06CV2087 (D. Ohio Dec. 8, 2006).
117. Id.
118. Id.
119. United States v. Medina, 985 F. Supp. 397, 400 (S.D.N.Y. 1997).
120. Id.
121. Id.
122. Jacques Semmelman, The Doctrine of Specialty in the Federal Courts: Making Sense of United States v. Rauscher, 34 Va. J. Int’l L. (1993).
123. Id.
124. Medina, supra note 119, at 400 n. 5 (stating “Because specialty is based upon concerns of international comity, the surrendering country may waive its applicability.”)
125. Semmelman, supra note 122.
126. United States v. Yousef, 377 F.3d 56, 71 (2d. Cir. 2003).
127. United States v. Puentes, 50 F.3d 1567, 1572 (11th Cir. 1994) (“An extradited person may raise whatever objections the extraditing country is entitled to raise.”); see also Robert Iraola, The Doctrine of Specialty and Federal Criminal Prosecutions, 43 Val. U. L. Rev. 89 (Fall 2008).
128. Morrison v. Lappin, No. 4:06CV2087 (D. Ohio Dec. 8, 2006).
129. Id.; Puentes, 50 F.3d, at 127; Iraola, supra note 127, at 95 (stating, “United States v. Puentes illustrates the principle that courts not interpret specialty in a manner that restricts the government’s proof at trial with respect to the charged conspiracy offense for which the extradition was granted when the scope of the evidence exceeds that which was presented to the requested state.”).
130. Antwi v. United States, 349 F. Supp. 2d 663, 666 (S.D. N.Y. 2004).
131. Id.
132. Id.
133. Id.
134. Id.
135. Antwi, 349 F. Supp. 2d at 669-71.
136. Id. at 672-73.
137. Id. at 673.
138. Id. at 673.
139. Id.
140. Antwi v. United States, 349 F. Supp. 2d 663, 673 (S.D. N.Y. 2004).
141. Id. at 673–74.
142. Treaty, supra note 6.
143. Jamaica Extradition Act, supra note 44.
144. Id.; Treaty, supra note 6.
145. Id.
146. See e.g., Jamaica Extradition Act, supra note 44:
Part III—Proceedings for Extradition
8. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act relating to provisional warrants, a person shall not be dealt with under this Act except in pursuance of an order of the Minister (in this Act referred to as “authority to proceed” issued in pursuance of a request made to the Minister by or on behalf of any Approved State— …
(3) On receipt of such a request the Minister may issue an authority to proceed , unless it appears to him that an order for the extradition of the person concerned could not lawfully be made, or would not in fact be made, in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
147. Manatt Phelps and Phillips Saga, RJR News, http://rjrnewsonline.com/topics/manatt-phelps-and-phillips-saga (last visited Aug. 13, 2012).
148. Id.; JLP on Manatt-Dudus Report, The Gleaner, June 14, 2011, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/latest/article.php?id=29382.
149. Treaty, supra note 6, art. VII.
150. Id.art. IX–X.
If the executive authority of the Requested State considers that the information furnished in support of the request for extradition is not sufficient to fulfill the requirements of this Treaty, it shall notify the Requesting State in order to enable that State to furnish additional information….
151. “Norris Barnes was kidnapped and the United States had never acknowledged that it did wrong…. We are going to insist that the extradition issues be done in compliance with the laws of Jamaica.” Gary Spaulding, United States Refusing to Amend Extradition Treaty, Says Golding, The Gleaner, Mar. 24, 2011, available at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110324/lead/lead3.html.
WHY DID MEN STOP WEARING HIGH HEELS
Why did men stop wearing high heels?
By William Kremer
BBC World Service
For generations they have signified femininity and glamour – but a pair of high heels was once an essential accessory for men.
Beautiful, provocative, sexy – high heels may be all these things and more, but even their most ardent fans wouldn’t claim they were practical.
They’re no good for hiking or driving. They get stuck in things. Women in heels are advised to stay off the grass – and also ice, cobbled streets and posh floors.
And high heels don’t tend to be very comfortable. It is almost as though they just weren’t designed for walking in.
Originally, they weren’t.
Good horsemanship was essential to the fighting styles of Persia – the historical name for modern-day Iran.
“When the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more effectively,” says Semmelhack.
At the end of the 16th Century, Persia’s Shah Abbas I had the largest cavalry in the world. He was keen to forge links with rulers in Western Europe to help him defeat his great enemy, the Ottoman Empire.
A men’s 17th Century Persian shoe, covered in shagreen – horse-hide with pressed mustard seeds
So in 1599, Abbas sent the first Persian diplomatic mission to Europe – it called on the courts of Russia, Germany and Spain.
A wave of interest in all things Persian passed through Western Europe. Persian style shoes were enthusiastically adopted by aristocrats, who sought to give their appearance a virile, masculine edge that, it suddenly seemed, only heeled shoes could supply.
Louis XIV wearing his trademark heels in a 1701 portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud
As the wearing of heels filtered into the lower ranks of society, the aristocracy responded by dramatically increasing the height of their shoes – and the high heel was born.
In the muddy, rutted streets of 17th Century Europe, these new shoes had no utility value whatsoever – but that was the point.
“One of the best ways that status can be conveyed is through impracticality,” says Semmelhack, adding that the upper classes have always used impractical, uncomfortable and luxurious clothing to announce their privileged status.
“They aren’t in the fields working and they don’t have to walk far.”
When it comes to history’s most notable shoe collectors, the Imelda Marcos of his day was arguably Louis XIV of France. For a great king, he was rather diminutively proportioned at only 5ft 4in (1.63m).
He supplemented his stature by a further 4in (10cm) with heels, often elaborately decorated with depictions of battle scenes.
The heels and soles were always red – the dye was expensive and carried a martial overtone. The fashion soon spread overseas – Charles II of England’s coronation portrait of 1661 features him wearing a pair of enormous red, French style heels – although he was over 6ft (1.85m) to begin with.
In the 1670s, Louis XIV issued an edict that only members of his court were allowed to wear red heels. In theory, all anyone in French society had to do to check whether someone was in favour with the king was to glance downwards. In practice, unauthorised, imitation heels were available.
The 17th Century shoe on the left, which may have been French, was for a child – its stacked leather heel was painted red to suggest privilege
“An obvious link with Louis XIV and the red sole and heel is Christian Louboutin’s red sole (right), which is today one of the most immediate and recognisable status symbols,” says Helen Persson from the Victoria and Albert Museum
But while today’s fashion designers have a huge array of plastics and metals in their toolbox, it was an engineering challenge for 17th Century shoemakers to support the instep on a high heel
One solution was to place the heel very far forward in the shoe – this effectively transferred the problem from the shoemaker to the wearer
Although Europeans were first attracted to heels because the Persian connection gave them a macho air, a craze in women’s fashion for adopting elements of men’s dress meant their use soon spread to women and children.
“In the 1630s you had women cutting their hair, adding epaulettes to their outfits,” says Semmelhack.
“They would smoke pipes, they would wear hats that were very masculine. And this is why women adopted the heel – it was in an effort to masculinise their outfits.”
From that time, Europe’s upper classes followed a unisex shoe fashion until the end of the 17th Century, when things began to change again.
“You start seeing a change in the heel at this point,” says Helen Persson, a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. “Men started to have a squarer, more robust, lower, stacky heel, while women’s heels became more slender, more curvaceous.”
Why are high heels sexy?
Association Elizabeth Semmelhack believes that high heels began to be seen as erotic footwear when they came back into fashion in the late 19th Century – the nude models on French postcards were often wearing them
Biology Dr Helen Fischer, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University, says that heels force women into a “natural courting pose” found amongst mammals, with an arched back and protruding buttocks
Patriarchy Not only do heels transform the way women’s bodies look to please men, they cause them pain and prevent them from running away – radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys says they are one way in which women are forced to “compensate for the lack of power that men may be having”
The toes of women’s shoes were often tapered so that when the tips appeared from her skirts, the wearer’s feet appeared to be small and dainty.
Fast forward a few more years and the intellectual movement that came to be known as the Enlightenment brought with it a new respect for the rational and useful and an emphasis on education rather than privilege. Men’s fashion shifted towards more practical clothing. In England, aristocrats began to wear simplified clothes that were linked to their work managing country estates.
It was the beginning of what has been called the Great Male Renunciation, which would see men abandon the wearing of jewellery, bright colours and ostentatious fabrics in favour of a dark, more sober, and homogeneous look. Men’s clothing no longer operated so clearly as a signifier of social class, but while these boundaries were being blurred, the differences between the sexes became more pronounced.
“There begins a discussion about how men, regardless of station, of birth, if educated could become citizens,” says Semmelhack.
“Women, in contrast, were seen as emotional, sentimental and uneducatable. Female desirability begins to be constructed in terms of irrational fashion and the high heel – once separated from its original function of horseback riding – becomes a primary example of impractical dress.”
High heels were seen as foolish and effeminate. By 1740 men had stopped wearing them altogether.
But it was only 50 years before they disappeared from women’s feet too, falling out of favour after the French Revolution.
By the time the heel came back into fashion, in the mid-19th Century, photography was transforming the way that fashions – and the female self-image – were constructed.
Pornographers were amongst the first to embrace the new technology, taking pictures of naked women for dirty postcards, positioning models in poses that resembled classical nudes, but wearing modern-day high heels.
Semmelhack, author of Heights of Fashion: A History of the Elevated Shoe, believes that this association with pornography led to high heels being seen as an erotic adornment for women.
A rare sight – men in high heels at a gay pride party in Spain in 2005
The 1960s saw a return of low heeled cowboy boots for men and some dandies strutted their stuff in platform shoes in the 1970s.
But the era of men walking around on their toes seems to be behind us. Could we ever return to an era of guys squeezing their big hairy feet into four-inch, shiny, brightly coloured high heels?
“Absolutely,” says Semmelhack. There is no reason, she believes, why the high heel cannot continue to be ascribed new meanings – although we may have to wait for true gender equality first.
“If it becomes a signifier of actual power, then men will be as willing to wear it as women.”
The Why Factor is broadcast on BBC World Service on Fridays at 18:30 GMT. Listen to the heels episode via iPlayer or The Why Factor download.
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UGANDA’S KILL BILL LAW WHEY DEM A KILL UP DEMSELF OVA
Friday, February 1st, 2013 – The two Ugandan men, who hit world news for being the first Ugandan men to openly pronounce their gay relationship and marriage, may not be in the happiest after all.
Jimmy Sswerwadda and Lawrence Kaala exchanged vows legally to a small church gathering on Saturday 26th January 2013 in Järfälla, a North Stockholm suburb in Sweden.
The two separated in Uganda back in 2008 by the troubles and cultural rejection they both endured in their home country forcing them to each take off individually.
Sserwadda then applied for protection in Sweden and after being accepted he became active on the LGBT (Lesbian Gay bisexual and Transgender community) undertakings.
Kaala later also fled into Sweden and on meeting again in a Stairwell they did not hesitate but quickly rekindled the love they had had.
Sadly, A short while before the wedding, Kaala’s application for asylum was rejected and he was on the blink of being deported back to Uganda where homosexuality is not condoned and should the worst happen, he will then face imprisonment or the same fate that befell David Kato- the first openly gay Ugandan activist who was murdered in 2011.
Reports say that the couple whose wedding day was in commemoration of the former gay activist’s second anniversary‘s death, may be deported. They are pleading for leniency from the drastic decision Sweden Migration Board’s (SMB) made.
“If they put him on a plane to Uganda now, they will be sentencing him to death.” Sserwadda said.
Kaala only has two weeks since the date of the rejection of his application to make a formal appeal before he goes back to face the Ugandan law.
Uganda has since come under the world’s spotlight for its famous Anti-Homosexuality Bill also known as the “Kill-bill”, a private bill that if passed, will treat such relationships as criminal offences as they will then be made officially illegal.
The two however, will still not be completely off the hook since the bill will also make provisions for people who have sought asylum or engaged in same-sex relationships outside the country to be extracted from the host countries and come face punishment under the laws of Uganda.
And to make matters worse, with the bill, even individuals and organizations that are in support of LGBT rights will not be spared either.
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BILLS
SUPPLEMENT No. 13 25th September, 2009.
BILLS SUPPLEMENT
to the Uganda (;acrre No 47 Volume CII dared 25th Sepsembei 2009.
Printed by UPPC. Entebbe Order of the Government.
Bill No. 18 Anti Homosexualiij.’ Bill 2009 THE ANTI HOMOSEXUALITY BILL, 2009.
MEMORANDUM.
1.1. The principle
The object of this Bill is to establish a comprehensive consolidated legislation to protect the traditional family by prohibiting (i) any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex; and (ii) the promotion or recognition of such sexual relations in public institutions and other places through or with the support of any Government entity in Uganda or any non governmental organization inside or outside the country.
This Bill aims at strengthening the nation’s capacity to deal with emerging internal and external threats to the traditional heterosexual family.
This legislation further recognizes the fact that same sex
attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic.
The Bill further aims at providing a comprehensive and enhanced legislation to protect the cherished culture of the people of Uganda. legal, religious, and traditional family values of the people of Uganda against the attempts of sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of sexual promiscuity on the people of Uganda.
There is also need to protect the children and youths of Uganda who are made vulnerable to sexual abuse and deviation as a result of cultural changes. uncensored information technologies, parentless child developmental settings and increasing attempts by homosexuals to raise children in homosexual relationships through adoption, foster care, or otherwise.
2.1. Defects in existing law.
This proposed legislation is designed to fill the gaps in the provisions of other laws in Uganda e.g. the Penal Code Act Cap. 120.
The Penal Code Act (Cap120) has no comprehensive provision catering for anti homosexuality. It focuses on unnatural offences under section 145 and lacks provisions for penalizing the procurement, promoting, disseminating literature and other pantographic materials concerning the offences of homosexuality hence the need for legislation to provide for charging, investigating, prosecuting, convicting and sentencing of offenders.
This legislation comes to complement and supplement the provisions of the Constitution of Uganda and the Penal Code Act Cap 120 by not only criminalizing same sex marriages but also same-sex sexual acts and other related acts.
3.1. The objectives of the Bill
The objectives of the Bill are to:
(a) provide for marriage in Uganda as that contracted only between a man and a woman;
(b) prohibit and penalize homosexual behavior and related practices in Uganda as they constitute a threat to the traditional family;
(c) prohibit ratification of any international treaties, conventions, protocols, agreements and declarations which are contrary or inconsistent with the provisions of this Act;
(d) prohibit the licensing of organizations which promote homosexuality.
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