Pubdate: December 5, 1997 Source: The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA Website: http://www.tribnet.com Contact: Our newshawk writes: This may be off subject, but it illustrates the disdain that European countries have for an egocentric U.S. and its' justice system. Editors note: We do not draw a fine line as to what is 'off topic'. But then items that may be 'off topic', or do not have good source or pubdate info, lack paragraphing, or otherwise represent processing delays, may stay in the queue while we send out other news items, and may not be distributed if the amount of news exceeds the available time for processing. So you, as a newshawk, may send items you feel may be 'off topic' if you feel strongly about them. But you take your chances. Richard Lake, Editor FRANCE WON'T EXTRADITE U.S. FUGITIVE Exguru, Convicted Of Killing In Absentia, Free Amid Doubts About American Justice By Johnthor Dahlburg, Los Angeles Times PARIS Since 1993, the writer with the saltandpepper goatee lived in a converted windmill in a village of southern France with his strawberryblond Swedish wife. Last June, before sunrise, heavily armed police moved in and arrested him as he lay naked in bed. He claimed it was a case of mistaken identity. But fingerprints showed he was Ira Einhom, a former hippie and New Age guru from Philadelphia convicted on firstdegree murder charges in the death of his former girlfriend and a man on the run for almost 17 years. U.S. authorities wanted Einhorn back so he could begin serving the life term he was sentenced to in his absence after he skipped bail. A court in the southwestern wine capital of Bordeaux, which delayed its decision three times, finally gave it Thursday: "No." Instead, the Bordeaux Appeals Court ordered Einhom, 57, subject of a dogged manhunt across five countries, freed. "The United States has learned today, to its distress, that it still has lessons to learn from old Europe in matters of human rights," Dominique Delthil, Einhom's attorney, told reporters. The American, incarcerated in Gradignan prison near Bordeaux and, who, as usual, wore faded blue jeans, said "thank you" to the judges. From the Massachusetts "nanny trial" and the O.J. Simpson case to the existence of the death penalty in many states and the burgeoning size of the U.S. prison population, justice, American style, have a poor reputation in France and much of the rest of Europe. In making their ruling, the Bordeaux Judges in effect said that in American hands, Einhom would not be treated according to standards of French justice. Shortly before his trial was due to start, in January 1981, Einhom, an antiwar activist and confidant to Philadelphia blue bloods and millionaires, fled the United States. In 1993, prosecutors, using a new Pennsylvania law, tried him in his absence. A jury took two hours to convict him of firstdegree murder. Einhorn's story goes back to September 1977, when a former lover, Helen 'Holly' Maddux of Tyler, Texas, disappeared. Eighteen months later, the former Bryn Mawr College student's emaciated body, the skull shattered in at least a halfdozen places, was found in a trunk in Einhorn's Philadelphia apartment. Emhom said he was being framed and spoke of the CIA and KGB. A friend of Abbic Hoffinan and Jerry Rubin, he had friends in powerful places. His lawyer, future U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, won him low bail, $40,000. Barbara Bronfinan, a Montreal socialite, reportedly paid it. Einhom bolted the United States his trial was to begin. Since he has been on the run, from Britain and Ireland to Sweden, Denmark and France. Like Pennsylvania, France also tries people accused of crimes even if they are not present in court. But under French procedure, once the accused are captured or turn himself in, he or she must be retried and thus have the chance to present a defense. Einhorn's lawyers successfully argued that since Pennsylvania does not have that requirement, Einhorn's civil liberties would be denied by allowing extradition. "The court's decision is in line with our expectations and proves that the American justice system is less advanced than ours," Delthil said. The legal team also had warned that Einhorn might be retried just so Pennsylvania prosecutors could seek the death penalty, which France abolished as inhumane in October 1981. In Philadelphia, Joel Rosen, the prosecutor who tried the case and won Einhorn's conviction, expressed anger over the decision. "The one thing that is clearer than anything is this guy murdered his girlfriend, kept her body in a steamer trunk in his apartment for a year and a half, and he is getting away with murder thanks to the decision, of the court," Rosen said. "France is protecting him. He will be allowed to live his lovely life after he got away with murdering a woman."