Opinion ID: 902495
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Miscellaneous Due Process Arguments

Text: For his final salvo, Ali fires a barrage of “Special Criminal Law Concerns” he claims are relevant to his right to due process. We respond in kind: 31 • Ali laments the “lack of vicinage” between his alleged crime and the legal forum set for his prosecution. See United States v. Cores, 356 U.S. 405, 407 (1958) (“The provision for trial in the vicinity of the crime is a safeguard against the unfairness and hardship involved when an accused is prosecuted in a remote place.”). But Counts Three and Four introduce no unique detriment to Ali’s defense beyond that already inherent to his piracy prosecution. And the sweep of Ali’s argument is overinclusive, as it would seemingly defeat all extraterritorial applications of criminal statutes. • Ali next targets the length of his pretrial detention. While he is correct that excessive pretrial detention may in certain circumstances deprive a defendant of his right to a speedy trial, “courts must still engage in a difficult and sensitive balancing process.” Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 533 (1972). Beyond stating the length of his detention, Ali has offered no specifics on how his rights have been violated or his defense prejudiced. • Invoking double jeopardy norms, Ali contends his susceptibility to future prosecution in, say, Denmark or Somalia renders inappropriate his prosecution in the United States. Though he acknowledges the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on double jeopardy does not constrain prosecutions by separate sovereigns, see United States v. Rashed, 234 F.3d 1280, 1282 (D.C. Cir. 2000), he nonetheless tries to smuggle in the underlying principle via the Due Process Clause. To invoke the principle of double jeopardy in order to thwart a well-recognized exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause is already strange. Yet even more mystifying is his attempt to make the point in the first forum to subject him to criminal charges. It seems such an argument would be more 32 compelling in the next forum (if any) that opts to prosecute him. Along with these due process concerns, Ali discusses principles of international comity. The issue, as well as its import for due process, is addressed in cursory fashion. No matter. An amorphous reference to international comity is no basis for gainsaying the clearly expressed intention of the United States, by both treaty and statute, to prosecute hostage takers for their offenses abroad.