Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4839682-20140819182912/@comment-24936039-20141030182416

Utter solitude wrote: Andrew.scott.503 wrote:

Regina has committed murder of the first degree and conspiracy to commit regicide as well as crimes against humanity in the EF. However, the kingdoms of Mist Haven are not signatures of any sort of extradition treaties with the USA nor the Geneva Convention (dah!). So as long as Regina stays in the USA, she cannot be extradited nor tried for these crimes. Being an illegal alien (everyone would be an illegal except for Henry who was born in the USA, Emma technically was born in the EF, although I don't know if she would be considered an illegal or not) I guess the USA could DEPORT her (how the border patrol could do this though would be interesting - it's not like they could put her on a bus and dump her at a border)

However, she is certainly guilty of the murder of Graham and Kurt Flynn* (presumably a US citizen) as well as conspiracy to kidnapping Kathryn. As far as I know, there is no Statute of Limitations on these crimes (and even though she could claim to be a foreign dignitary, without treaties there would not be diplomatic immunity).

So despite her growing as a character, there is still justice to pay for crimes committed whether she is able to stay in the USA or in the EF (although I guess Snow could Pardon her EF crimes).

This will sound odd, but given the sheer unknown (magic) power involved with several of the Storybrooke residents, Regina included, in my mind, if, say, the FBI were to somehow invade, it would be more like dealing with aliens. XD Meaning, these people have power regular LWM inhabitants have never dealt with. You can't exactly hold someone who can just poof away in a regular prison. But it's fun to think about what would happen.
 * I also wonder what happened during the year that Storybrooke 'evaporated' - While Graham's body would presumable be sent back to the EF, Kurt's body would still be there.  And I don't think Kurt and Owen were the only people ever to hike in the area that Storybrooke landed...  Would there be a possible episode dealing with 'loose ends' here?

As far as the "any other hikers"-- following the current rules laid out by the show, assuming no unknowns, there are no other people visiting Storybrooke. Owen and Kurt Flynn were there because they happened to be there before the town appeared. Afterward, the town was sealed magically. Regina brought down that barrier to allow Owen to leave. The Darling brothers crossed it when it was weakened/down. It's my personal theory that anyone travelling the road during the initial 28 year curse just traveled a normal road through the woods-- nothing out of the ordinary. (Of course, they could turn this on its ear at any point in the future) Or, maybe someone was camping there when the town reappeared. It's not a route I think they'd follow again, but you never know.

I agree about the initial 28 years - just a road through the woods is what the outside world sees (normally) and as shown near the end of the Welcome to Storybrooke episode when Owen returned with the Maine state troupers searching for Kurt.

But there is a FULL year between the end of season 3A and the start of season 3B where I presume that any hikers, road\utility workers, etc. could come across the corpse of Kurt (and I think that Owen/Greg partially dug up the corpse at the end of season 2, IIRC). Granted it would be a 'cold case' as far as the Maine troupers/FBI would be concerned, but still there is those missing person records that would still be in police files...