Jens Soering (born August 1, 1966 in Bangkok, Thailand) is a German citizen who has been imprisoned since 1986 for a double murder in Virginia, USA.

Early life

Jens Soering is the son of a German diplomat. In 1984 he began to study at the University of Virginia and fell in love with a student named Elizabeth Haysom.

In March, 1985, Haysom's parents, Derek and Nancy, were murdered. Jens Soering and Elizabeth Haysom were arrested in England the following year when they were caught with a check fraud scheme.

Initially Soering claimed to be guilty of the murder but later withdrew his three confessions. Soering said he took the blame to protect Elizabeth Haysom from going to the electric chair as he thought he would get deported to Germany and given a lighter sentence because of his father's job as a mid-level diplomat. At trial, Elizabeth Haysom accused him of being the murderer, but admitted being an accessory in the crime.

The court case

In court, Jens Soering claimed that Haysom was the murderer and he wanted to spare her the death penalty by confessing. Soering later claimed to have assumed that, due to his father's diplomatic immunity, he would be extradited to Germany and be sentenced according to local juvenile criminal law to a sentence of less than 10 years.

According to the prosecution's case, Soering was the sole offender and his girlfriend was only an instigator. Although there were no eyewitnesses or fingerprints of Soering at the scene, and no usable DNA, the jury found Soering guilty, due to the presence of other evidence as well as his confessions.

Even though he later took these back, he mentioned that it was a killing with a knife, the Haysoms were drinking, and other details that were consistent with the facts. Soering received two consecutive life sentences for the murders. He was first eligible for parole in 2003.

Detention

Soering was arrested on April 30, 1986 for fraud in London and had been transferred to the U.S. authorities in 1990. He is currently serving his sentence at the Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, VA. In 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his revision. Soering fell out with his father at that time, and hasn't since spoken to him.

Six applications for early release from prison (the latest in August 2010) were rejected, as well as any requests for a transfer to a prison in Germany. Soering's former girlfriend was sentenced to ninety years imprisonment (one 45-year sentence for each murder, served consecutively). She has a mandatory release in 2032 when she will be 68.

Publication

Soering has published books and articles on the topics of meditation during his time in prison, justice and prison conditions in the U.S. His third book in 2007 received the first prize of the Catholic Press Association of North America in the category "Social Concerns".

Wikipedia.org

Soering v United Kingdom 11 Eur. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) (1989) is a landmark judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) which established that extradition of a young German national to the United States to face charges of capital murder violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) guaranteeing the right against inhuman and degrading treatment.

Facts

The applicant, Jens Soering, is a German national, born in 1966, who was brought by his parents to the United States at age eleven. In 1984, he was an 18-year old honor student at the University of Virginia, where he became good friends with Elizabeth Haysom, a Canadian national two years his elder.

Haysom's parents, William Reginald Haysom and Nancy Astor Haysom, lived near the university, in Boonsboro, and were against their daughter's relationship with Soering. According to the account provided later to local police, Soering and Elizabeth Haysom decided to kill Haysom's parents; and, to divert suspicion, they rented a car in Charlottesville and drove to Washington D.C. On 30 March 1985, Soering drove to the Haysom residence and dined with the unsuspecting couple. During or after dinner, he picked a quarrel and viciously attacked them with a knife. Both were found with their throats slit and with stab and slash wounds to the neck and body.

In October 1985, Soering and Elizabeth Haysom fled to Europe; and, on 30 April 1986, they were arrested in England on charges of cheque fraud. Six weeks later, a grand jury of the Circuit Court of Bedford County, Virginia, indicted Soering with the capital murder of the Haysoms, as well as their separate non-capital murders.

On 11 August 1986, the United States requested extradition for the pair, based on the 1972 extradition treaty. A warrant was issued under section 8 of the Extradition Act 1870 for the arrest of Soering, and he was committed to await the Home Secretary's order to extradite him to the United States.

Soering filed a petition for habeas corpus with the Divisional Court and requested permission for judicial review of the decision to commit him, arguing that the Extradition Act 1870 did not authorise extradition for a capital charge. He also cited article IV of the US-UK extradition treaty, which provides that an extradition request for an offence carrying the death penalty can be refused if the requesting country has not given "assurances [...] that the death penalty will not be carried out." An assurance had been provided by the Commonwealth Attorney of Bedford County; but Soering contended it was worthless. On 11 December 1987, Lord Justice Lloyd in the Divisional Court admitted that the assurance "leaves something to be desired" but refused the request for judicial review, stating that Soering's request was premature, as the Home Secretary had not yet accepted the assurance.

Soering appealed to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, which rejected his claim on 30 June 1988. He, then, petitioned the Home Secretary without success, the latter authorising extradition on 3 August 1988.

Anticipating this outcome, Soering had filed a claim with the European Commission of Human Rights (ECHR) on 9 July 1988, asserting that he would face inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights ("the Convention") were he to be extradited to the USA, it being likely that the death penalty would be applied.

Soering's arguments that the use by a non-Convention State of the death penalty would engage the right to life were novel, in that Article 2(1) of the Convention expressly permits the use of the death penalty, and Article 3 had never been interpreted to bring the death penalty, per se, within the prohibition of "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". The applicant, therefore, sought to make it clear that this was not the simple application of a punishment prescribed by law, but rather his exposure to the death row phenomenon, where he would be kept in detention for an unknown period, awaiting execution. The ECHR requested that no extradition take place pending the deliverance of its judgment.

Judgment

European Commission of Human Rights

Soering's application was declared admissible on 10 November 1988, and the European Commission of Human Rights gave its judgment on 19 January 1989. It decided, by six votes to five, that in this particular case the extradition would not constitute inhuman or degrading treatment. It did, however, accept that the extradition of a person to a country "where it is certain or where there is a serious risk that the person will be subjected to torture or inhuman treatment the deportation or extradition would, in itself, under such circumstances constitute inhuman treatment."

European Court of Human Rights

On 7 July 1989, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) handed down a unanimous judgment affirming the Commission's conclusion that Article 3 could be engaged by the extradition process and that the extraditing state could be responsible for the breach where it is aware of a real risk that the person may be subject to inhuman or degrading treatment.

Amnesty International intervened in the case and submitted that, in the light of "evolving standards in Western Europe regarding the existence and use of the death penalty", this punishment should be considered as inhuman and degrading and was therefore effectively prohibited by Article 3. This was not accepted by the ECHR, as the Convention does allow for the death penalty's use in certain circumstances. It followed that Article 3 could not stand in the way of the extradition of a suspect simply because they might be subject to the death penalty.

However, even if the extradition itself would not constitute a breach of Article 3, such factors as the execution method, the detainee's personal circumstances, the sentence's disproportionality to the gravity of the crime, and conditions of detention could all violate Article 3. To answer this question, the Court had to determine whether there was a "real risk" of Soering's being executed. Relying on arguments by the Attorney-General for England and Wales, the ECHR did not give much weight to U.S. authorities' assurance that the Commonwealth of Virginia would not seek the death penalty.

Departing from the Commission's ruling, the ECHR concluded that the "death row phenomenon" did breach Article 3. They highlighted four factors that contributed to the violation:

• The length of detention prior to execution

• Conditions on death row

• Soering's age and mental condition

• The possibility of his extradition to Germany

As the ECHR concluded:

[H]aving regard to the very long period of time spent on death row in such extreme conditions, with the ever present and mounting anguish of awaiting execution of the death penalty, and to the personal circumstances of the applicant, especially his age and mental state at the time of the offence, the applicant's extradition to the United States would expose him to a real risk of treatment going beyond the threshold set by Article 3. A further consideration of relevance is that in the particular instance the legitimate purpose of extradition could be achieved by another means [extradition or deportation to Germany], which would not involve suffering of such exceptional intensity or duration.

Aftermath

The U.K. government obtained further assurances from the U.S. regarding the death penalty before extraditing Soering to Virginia. He was tried and convicted of the first degree murders of the Haysoms and, on 4 September 1990, sentenced to two consecutive life terms. He is serving his sentence at the Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, Virginia.

Elizabeth Haysom did not contest her extradition from the U.K. and pled guilty to conspiring to kill her parents. On 6 October 1987, the court sentenced her to 45-years-per-count to be served consecutively. She is serving her sentence at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women.

Significance

Soering v. United Kingdom is important in four respects:

• It enlarges the scope of a state's responsibility for breaches of the Convention. A signatory State must now consider consequences of returning an individual to a third country where he might face treatment that breaches the Convention. This is notwithstanding that the ill-treatment may be beyond its control, or even that assurances have been provided that no ill-treatment has taken place.

• By finding a breach of the Convention on the territory of a non-signatory State, the Court considerably expanded the obligation to all States. Not only are signatories responsible for consequences of extradition suffered outside their jurisdiction, but this jurisdiction implicitly extends to actions in non-signatory States. The Convention also overrides agreements concluded with such States.

• The rationale of the Court's judgment applies equally to deportation cases, where other articles of the Convention may apply, such as Article 6 (right to a fair trial).

• The Court's approach to the death penalty, itself permitted by the Convention, may reduce its use by non-signatory States that seek to extradite suspects from signatory States. The decision makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the US and other capital punishment countries to extradite suspects on capital charges from signatory States.

Wikipedia.org

Haysom murders, 20 years ago today: blood sweat and convictions

Starting in 1985, the Haysom double murder case ranged from Virginia to England and ignited a three-year legal battle

By Jat Conley - Roanoke.com

April 3, 2005

Carl Wells remembers it clearly.

Retired now to his 200-plus-acre farm just outside Bedford, Wells, 69, was Bedford County's sheriff 20 years ago today when friends found the brutally stabbed bodies of Derek and Nancy Haysom in their Boonsboro home.

"It was about as bad a crime scene as you'd want to look at," he said.

The discovery of the bodies touched off a criminal investigation that led from Virginia to England and ignited a three-year legal battle.

Beyond the sheer violence of the act came the shocking discovery that the affluent couple's college-age daughter, Elizabeth, and her German boyfriend, Jens Soering, both honor students at the University of Virginia, were responsible for the crime.

The slain couple's ties to South Africa and Canada, along with Soering's father being a West German diplomat, caused a flurry of national and international media attention.

In Bedford, the case was the talk of the town.

"Wherever you went, people were talking about it," said Carol Black, who has been the county's Circuit Court clerk for 21 years. "When you put it all together, it was all so different than anything else that had ever happened."

Chuck Reid, one of the lead investigators on the case, had worked other homicides for the sheriff's office, but the Haysom case was different.

"They don't stick in my mind like that one does," Reid, now 53 and a captain with the Blue Ridge Regional Jail Authority's Moneta annex, said last week.

Haysom, now 40, pleaded guilty in 1987 to conspiring to kill her parents and is serving a 90-year sentence at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy.

Soering, now 38, was convicted in 1990 on two counts of first-degree murder during a three-week trial that was televised on late-night TV and drew a throng of spectators who brought sack lunches to avoid giving up their seats in the packed courtroom. He is serving two life terms at the Brunswick Correctional Center in Lawrenceville.

Over the last two decades, books and cable television documentaries have been produced about the relationship between the two young lovers that led to murder.

Bedford County officials marveled recently at how quickly the time has passed since the killings.

Soering feels differently.

"I'm not aware of anybody in prison who thinks that 20 years goes by quickly," Soering said during an interview last month.

'A real whodunit'

For Wells and his small staff, examining the crime scene that Wednesday afternoon in 1985 yielded few clues.

"This was a real whodunit," said Ricky Gardner, 49, who is a captain now with the sheriff's office. Back then, he was 29 years old and had spent the past five years as a road deputy before Wells promoted him to investigator a few months before the murders.

When authorities stepped into the house that day, they found Derek Haysom lying on his left side near the front of the two-story brick and wood home with dozens of stab wounds to his torso, his throat slit, his face disfigured with cuts. In the kitchen lay Nancy Haysom, face down, her throat also cut, with similar stab wounds. Blood stained the floors of the home.

There was no sign of forced entry or robbery. The couple appeared to have sat down to dinner before they were killed, and they had been drinking quite a bit. Autopsies on the bodies determined both had 0.22 percent blood-alcohol levels.

Wells made Gardner and Reid the lead investigators on the case, and they would spend several months, work 12-hour days and chase down a number of false leads before turning their focus on Elizabeth Haysom and Jens Soering.

Deep-rooted resentment

Derek W.R. Haysom was 72 when he was murdered. Nancy Haysom was 53. Tall and robust, Derek Haysom's appearance not only conjured up comparisons to Ernest Hemingway, but his actions also exemplified the famous author's creed of grace under pressure. South African by birth, Haysom fought for the British behind enemy lines in the Middle East in World War II. He rose to become a powerful South African steel company executive and later moved to Nova Scotia at the request of the Canadian government to turn around a failing national steel mill there.

Beautiful as well as intelligent and adventuresome, Nancy Astor Benedict Haysom was raised in Lynchburg among privileged family. She had been all over the world with her father, a geologist, before marrying Derek Haysom in South Africa in 1960.

Between them, they had five children from prior marriages.

Born in 1964, Elizabeth Haysom inherited her mother's beauty, and by the time her parents retired to the rural, upper-class community of Boonsboro just outside Lynchburg in 1982, she was a bright teenager who had been reared in exclusive English boarding schools.

She also harbored deep-rooted resentment against her parents' overbearing control over everything she did, Haysom later told Soering.

In the fall of 1984, the 20-year-old Haysom enrolled in an honors program at the University of Virginia, about an hour from her parents' home.

Soon, she was seen hanging out with Soering, a self-described socially awkward and insecure 18-year-old West German student with thick glasses who was a Jefferson Scholar, which afforded him a prestigious academic scholarship.

It would be that insecurity and awkwardness that would lead Soering to make what he now calls "the mistake of my life."

Investigators close in

In the absence of substantial physical evidence, Gardner and Reid began to focus on what little they had, including a bloody footprint on the Haysoms' floor.

"We talked to everybody that we could to come up with a motive for why these people were so brutally murdered," Gardner said.

Wells took the unusual step of issuing weekly press releases to newspaper and television reporters starved for any tidbit of information, but he didn't want to reveal that family and friends of the Haysoms were considered suspects.

"There are certain things in the house that only we know and the person or persons who were there know," he told The Roanoke Times & World-News in a story about a week after the bodies were found. "I want to keep a couple of aces up my sleeve."

Neighbors of the Haysoms, scared that they too were in danger, latched onto any gossip about the case, including one theory that the murders were related to a satanic cult.

"They were locking their door and almost afraid to go to sleep," Wells said.

Gardner initially dismissed Elizabeth Haysom as a suspect.

But as other leads in the case were examined and dismissed, he and Reid focused on her whereabouts at the time of the murders. She told Gardner she and Soering had rented a car and driven to Washington, D.C. The mileage on the car, however, showed it had been driven hundreds of miles more than a round trip from Charlottesville to Washington.

Haysom said she and Soering had gotten lost on the way and spent time driving around Washington.

The discrepancy, coupled with Haysom's indifferent behavior during interviews and at her parents' funeral, warranted closer scrutiny.

"We had suspicions her activities weren't right and neither were his," Wells said. "They didn't show the real concern that they should have from the start. I'm a firm believer that a person's body will tell you more than their tongue."

"She didn't seem to be upset about anything really at all," Reid said.

While Haysom agreed to submit samples of her fingerprints and blood to police, Soering refused. He feared he would be deported or his family would somehow get in trouble if West German authorities found out he was involved in a murder investigation, Gardner said. At the time, Soering's father was vice consul at the West German consulate in Detroit.

The investigators had learned through interviews with Haysom family members, including Elizabeth, that Derek Haysom didn't approve of Soering dating his daughter.

In an interview the first week of October 1985, Gardner and Reid confronted Soering about his involvement in the murders.

"We did the good cop-bad cop thing," Gardner said. "I called him everything but a liar."

But Soering stood by the couple's story that they were miles away at the time of the murders. Eventually, he promised to return a week or so later for a follow-up interview, Gardner said.

Instead, Soering and Haysom disappeared from UVa and left the country separately for Europe.

Seven months later, short on money, they were arrested outside London in May 1986 on check fraud charges. British police searched the couple's apartment. They found bogus passports, wigs, mustaches and fraudulent checks, as well as letters to each other and a diary that led them to believe a murder had been committed, Gardner said.

Faye Massie, who works in the Bedford County Circuit Court clerk's office now, was a secretary at the sheriff's office in 1986 when she answered a phone call from a British investigator.

"He said, 'Have you all got an unsolved murder?'" Massie could hardly contain her excitement. "I said, 'Hold on, let me get the sheriff.'"

Gardner and Jim Updike, who was the county's commonwealth's attorney at the time and is now a Circuit Court judge, flew to England to interrogate Haysom and Soering.

Confessions soon followed.

According to Soering's confession, he drove the rental car alone to the Haysom home to commit the murders, Gardner said. He wounded Derek Haysom first after he was chastised by Haysom for dating his daughter. Then he tackled and killed Nancy Haysom in the kitchen before finishing off Derek Haysom.

Maintaining innocence

Soering has said over the years that he was in Washington when the murders occurred, and that he confessed only to save Elizabeth Haysom from being sentenced to death - and under the mistaken belief that he would be deported to Germany, where he would be tried as a youth and face a limited jail sentence.

"My feeling was, 10 years of my life was worth saving Elizabeth's life," he said.

But Elizabeth Haysom ended her relationship with Soering not long after her arrest and told authorities that Soering had committed the murders. She pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the murders before the fact in 1987 in a Bedford County courtroom.

Soering was initially charged with capital murder. He fought extradition to America for three years, backed at one point by the European Court of Human Rights, until the charge, which carries the death penalty, was dropped.

He returned to Bedford County in 1990 and pleaded not guilty to two charges of first-degree murder. Using Soering's confession and Haysom's testimony, prosecutor Jim Updike successfully convinced a jury that his footprint resembled the bloody footprint found at the scene.

He was sentenced to two life terms.

For the first 15 years behind bars, in maximum and super-maximum security prisons, Soering said, "I saw myself as the victim of a young woman who was mentally ill."

But lately, his devotion to Christian meditation has allowed him to conclude that he bears some responsibility for what happened, though he still maintains his innocence.

"I could have prevented this crime," he said. "If I had not been as cowardly as I had been, this double murder would not have happened."

He was denied parole in 2003 but is eligible again next year.

"I sort of feel sorry for him," Gardner said. "He let this relationship with this girl ruin his life. I'm thoroughly convinced that he has convinced himself that he didn't do it."

Haysom has said little publicly since her arrest and declined a request to be interviewed for this story.

She has been turned down twice for parole but is eligible each year until 2032, when she will have to be released under the state's mandatory parole guidelines. A Canadian citizen, she will face a federal deportation hearing when she is either paroled or released.

The former honors students continue to display their intelligence through their writings. Soering has written "The Way of the Prisoner," about Christian meditation, and "An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse: An Essay on Prison Reform From an Insider's Perspective," as well as a number of compelling articles on prison violence. His third book, "Convict Christ," is due to be published soon.

Haysom, too, has written about prison life and her religious faith for magazines and newspapers.

Reid and Gardner are unflinching in their belief that they solved the crime. Gardner has been interviewed so many times over the years that he keeps a special briefcase with crime scene photos, copies of letters and newspaper clippings about the case.

"Both of them are right where they should be," Gardner said. "If ever there were a pair that need to be punished, it's them."