Problem scenario

To clarify the differences of approach between the utilitarian approach considered in Chapter 4 and the retributivist approach discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, you may wish to reflect on the following scenario about the life of Anton Gecas, which can also be found at the end of Chapter 4.

In the early 1940s, he was a commander of the Third Platoon of the notorious 12th Lithuanian Police Auxiliary Battalion, a unit believed to be responsible for the murder of partisans, Jewish citizens and Communist Party members in Lithuania and Belarus in 1941.

You were asked to decide, on the basis of the facts reproduced below, whether Gecas should have been extradited to Lithuania to stand trial for the crimes of which he was accused. You were also asked to justify your answer.

Documents in the Lithuanian and Belarusian archives show that the principal function of Gecas' platoon was to carry out executions and hangings, often in village streets and city squares. Commanders such as Gecas were under orders to maximise the deterrent value of terror by advertising these atrocities. Gecas fled to the West at the end of the war, escaping prosecution in the Soviet Union. He never faced a criminal trial for his actions. He settled in Scotland in 1947, changed his name and ran a bed and breakfast business there for many years. He lost a civil action for defamation against Scottish TV which had reported his role in the atrocities in Lithuania and Belarus. In the 1990s the Lithuanian authorities submitted a request for his extradition to face trial for war crimes in Lithuania. By then he was a frail and infirm octogenarian, receiving treatment in an Edinburgh hospital, having suffered two strokes. He insisted he was too ill to travel and he died before the matter could be resolved.

You could consider this problem from the standpoint of utility. You would need to assess whether the outcome of extradition would be positive. What would be the costs and benefits of extradition? Would the prosecution and ultimate punishment of this individual achieve the purposes of individual and general deterrence? Are the other utilitarian justifications of punishment relevant to this problem?

When considering the impact of the decision, who should we include in our calculations? Should the fact that the individual in question is ill or elderly at the time of the request for extradition affect the decision you make? You may also wish to consider how this question would be answered from a retributivist standpoint.