Today's Da Er Wen Award Nominee: Chen Danlei

BTW, that picture is not Ms. Chen, but a drug dealer executed years ago.

Just in case anyone has been wondering about the case. Chen Danlei was sentenced to 2 years suspended death on 9/4/2006, which equals to about 12-15 years under current Chinese legal system.

"the assault happened while the couple was having sex."

Wow, how very "Basic Instinct"...

Thanks for sharing your insights, Jason and zhwu. Much obliged.

The question I'm still wondering about is whether Chen would have been arrested, held and tried in China if, all other elements in the case being the same, her husband (or any murder victim in this case) were not a P.R.C. citizen. And would the U.S. be asking for her return if the victim were a U.S. citizen (e.g. "Chinese Grad Student Kills, Dismembers West LaFayette Mayor Jan Mills")?

Again, these is just a theorhetical legal question, though I suspect Jason is spot on with his reference to caseloads as opposed to, say, blind justice.

She's incompetent, yes, but not quite Darwin material, IMO. No "OMG how STUPID is this girl" reaction when I'm reading this.

Now, the one who really would be eligible for a Darwin would be the hubby, cuz you don't think a guy would go back to the girl who stabbed him twice in the chest, but maybe he was just blinded by love?

Still not quite as deserving of a Darwin as some of the other idiots out there.

Mark, PRC got the jurisdiction over Chen if she is a PRC citizen committing a crime outside PRC with a sentence of fixed-term imprisonment more than 3 years under PRC Criminal Law.

China exerts extraterritorial jurisdiction over its citizens. This means that a Chinese court can hear a case involving a PRC national pretty much anytime it wants.

The thing about the idea of jurisdiction is that a country can say it has jurisdiction over anything it wants. In practice this does not happen because 1) most developed legal systems have enough of a caseload that they don't want to take more cases, especially ones that will be difficult to try and 2) because usually criminals are caught in the country where they commit the crime in and that country exercises its jurisdiction.(an interesting twist on possession is 9/10ths of the law)

Wow, what a story. And I thought Shanghai girls were tough...so happy my job working on tourist boats out of Chongqing years ago never worked out.

I'm gonna nominate He Lei for the Darwin award, principally because he is a) dead (call me a stickler for semantics here) b) stupid enough to not only bail her out, but support and go back to his clearly pyschotic girlfriend after she stabbed him twice.

Still a story worthy of the Darwin awards with all that superflous studity.

of course, right as I post that, I get the error. we'll continue to look into it.

Mark,

I think I just fixed that error right as you first posted, but please let us know if you continue to see errors.

thanks,

Neil

test

Another one for the courts. Why do I get this every time I post comments here:

Movable Type

An error occurred

Not a GLOB reference at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i386-linux-thread-multi/FCGI.pm line 125.

Status: 302 Moved Pragma: no-cache Location: http://blogs.gothamistllc.com/mt/mt-comments.fcgi?entry_id=58912

(But then it goes through)

The legal questions here are interesting.

There are no extradition treaties between the U.S. and China, but what is it in Chinese law that gives them jurisdiction over a crime alleged to have happened in the U.S.? Is it because the victim was a P.R.C. citizen, the suspect a P.R.C. citizen, or both? And if either of them weren't a P.R.C. passport holder, would the P.R.C. still be trying the suspect? (Again, a legal question.)

Put another way, shouldn't this crime be prosecuted in the States? I'm no lawyer--don't even play one on TV--but maybe someone has seen this addressed somewhere? It's not in the linked stories.

Where's ChinaLawBlog? Maybe he can shed some light....

"The question I'm still wondering about is whether Chen would have been arrested, held and tried in China if, all other elements in the case being the same, her husband (or any murder victim in this case) were not a P.R.C. citizen. And would the U.S. be asking for her return if the victim were a U.S. citizen?

A quick answer to your first question is YES. US may be inclined to require PRC to extradite Chen if her hubby is an American but it'll more than likely to turn out in vain coz most countries don't extradite their own citizen including PRC. It's not a theoretical legal question but pretty practical, such cases happen very often.

From a jurisdictional standpoint, I don't think that the nationality of the victim is relevant

I think the only thing that would be different in your hypo is that the US would probably be asking a little louder to try her in the US.(all they can do is ask nicely)