Abstract
The recent case of Deborah Dark, a grandmother currently residing in the UK and wanted in France for a crime she was convicted of in absentia 20 years ago, exposed some procedural loopholes in the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) surrender policies. Ms. Dark was arrested at the French border in 1989 and charged with a drug offense. After a trial in France, she was found not guilty and released from jail, and she returned to her home in the UK. At that point, Ms. Dark likely had no reason to expect that her case in France would proceed any further. From her perspective as a citizen of the UK, the term "acquittal" probably meant finality just as it would to any person with a common law orientation. Indeed, at that time, except in very rare circumstances, an appeal from an acquittal was not possible in the UK, and the finality of such judgments was recognized as a fundamental component of due process and liberty guarantees.