American Gabe Watson was found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder here in Australia thanks to the implementing of an obscure law. He served an eighteen month prison sentence here.
The Governor of his home state of Alabama now wants to try him before a Grand Jury over there.
The Australian justice system is considering allowing him to stay here, just to eliminate the prospect of him being dealt the death penalty.
Why? He must be congratulating himself for commiting the perfect murder.

Australian Story did a good two part progamme on this case the transcripts are below.

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2007/s2971395.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2007/s2978042.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... 062090.htm

So far as I know there was no “obscure law” involved. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and the prosecution dropped a charge of murder. The prosecution made this decision, so far as I can see, because the evidence to support a charge of murder was very weak.



Because Australia (along with many other countries) has a consistent policy of not extraditing people to places where they face capital punishment.

This problem has come up before (in fact, if you think about it, the US faces it quite a lot) and there is a well-established solution. The US authorities have to give satisfactory guarantees to the Australian authorities that, if extradited and convicted, Watson will not be executed. The objection to Watson’s extradition then disappears.

So far as I can gather from the newspaper coverage there is no real dispute that this is the way to handle the matter. The dispute is that the American authorities feel they have already given the required guarantees, whereas the Australian authorities want them given at a higher/more formal level. I feel sure that this is a problem which can be solved.

But it seems to me that there is a bigger problem. But the US and Australia have a rule against double jeopardy – meaning that, if you have already been tried and acquitted (or, for that matter, convicted) for a particular matter, you cannot be tried a second time. Watson has already been tried and acquitted for murder. Furthermore, he has been convicted and sentenced for manslaughter arising out of his wife’s death; that would in itself normally preclude a later charge of murder arising out of the same death, even if he hadn’t been charged with murder the first time around.

If satisfactory assurances about the death penalty are given, Watson will almost certainly object to his deportation on the grounds that he is going to be arrested and charged in the US in a way which violates the rule against double jeopardy. That point is not so easily disposed of.

Below is a link to the article which mentions an obscure law

http://www.smh.com.au/national/death-do ... 10e6t.html.

Thanks Christine

The “obscure law” is s. 290 of the Queensland Criminal Code, which reads as follows:

When a person undertakes to do any act the omission to do which is or may be dangerous to human life or health, it is the person’s duty to do that act: and the person is held to have caused any consequences which result to the life or health of any person by reason of any omission to perform that duty.

This was used to support a plea to manslaughter, on the basis that Watson should have carried through a rescue attempt which he had initiated, rather than breaking it off and going for help.

If this hadn’t been applied, there would have been no basis for convicting Watson of manslaughter. It doesn’t follow, though, that he would have been convicted of murder. The evidence was extremely weak. While it established that Watson had the opportunity to cut off his wife’s oxygen supply during the (in this scenario, supposedly faked) rescue attempt, it certainly didn’t establish that he actually did so. And the evidence as to financial motive is very dodgy; even the victim’s father, who wants a murder trial, doesn’t argue a financial motive; he argues irrational jealousy. But there is no evidence at all of that, other than his opinion.

The people demanding a murder trial here seem to be:

(a) the deceased’s family, whose feelings are understandable;

(b) (some) police officers from the victim’s home town, who admit to disliking Watson and his family, and who had nothing to do with the investigation of the death; and

(c) some elected politicians, who are competing with one another for the “law and order” vote.

Passions are clearly running high, but none of this amounts to a credible murder case.

Reading the newspaper reports it would seem very unlikely that he'd get a fair trial back in Alabama, and if double jeopardy applies there, and in the rest of the USA, one wonders why there are law officers even talking about another trial.

He certainly acted very strangely after his wife's death too, demanding her body be relocated and putting her family's flowers in the bin.
I think that mild little smile hides a darker side.
Why did he give her a bear hug and then bugger off and get someone else to rescue her? It doesn't make sense, and as Judge Judy says "If it doesn't make sense it's not true."

Deleted by Hunter