In the international community bars the death penalty for any offense tried in an international court. The latest example of the absudities that result when countries try to circumvent is found in this150-page opinion handed down last week by Hon. Ellen Huevelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. All three defendants, Leonidas Bimenyimana, Francois Karake, and Gregoire Nyaminani, are Rwandan citizens who are accused of taking part in an attack on a tourist camp located in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda. Eight tourists died including two U.S. citizens. The defendants were interrogated over a period of months while being subjected to physical torture, solitary confinement under inhumane conditions, and other coercive measures. From United States v. Karake:

The Court is painfully aware that two innocent American tourists were brutally killed at Bwindi on March 1, 1999. But that sentiment may not, under the law, dictate the result here. It is the government’s burden to prove that defendants’ multiple statements were each “the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice.” Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 225. The government cannot, however, meet its burden where defendants’ statements were extracted only after countless hours of repetitive questioning over a period of many months, during which time they were subjected to periods of solitary confinement, positional torture, and repeated physical abuse. It is a “fundamental . . . concept” of our constitutional system of criminal law that “neither the body nor the mind of an accused may be twisted until he breaks.”

It remains unclear whether the United States will be able to proceed. Congrats go out to all counsel, including, Harry Trainor, Jeffrey O'Toole &Danya Dayson.