European court orders Boca Raton murder suspect back to Florida for trial

A Palm Beach County man fighting extradition from Northern Ireland on a second-degree murder charge lost his last appeal this week in a European court, clearing the way for his return to South Florida to face trial in a 2016 shooting.

Jonah Horne, 28, took his case to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that sending him back to the United States would be unjust because of the likelihood he would be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

The Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office has indicated on repeated occasions that if Horne is convicted, prosecutors will not seek a sentence of more than 40 years, said office spokesman Marc Freeman.

“The defendant has exhausted all of his appeals concerning his extradition. As such, he is expected back in Palm Beach County,” Freeman said.

Horne is accused of the June 7, 2016, murder of Jacob Walsh, 25, during a drug deal gone bad on North Military Trail in Boca Raton. His co-defendant, Matthew Lewis, pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge and is awaiting sentencing, Freeman said.

According to news reports at the time, Horne traveled to Northern Ireland in October 2016 with $600 in his pocket before he was identified as a suspect in Walsh’s murder. He was arrested the following March in Lisburn on a warrant for the shooting.

The assurance that prosecutors won’t seek a life sentence led the European court to concluded Horne faced no “real risk” of a life sentence without parole. Such a sentence would be in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, Horne’s lawyers argued.

Life sentences for second-degree murder convictions are not unusual, but they are not mandatory. Judges typically are usually more lenient than prosecutors at sentencing time, though there are cases in which judges are harsher. An assistant Palm Beach County Public Defender, Scott Pribble, testified in the European court and told judges about several Florida cases in which the judge imposed a sentence greater than prosecutors sought.

Horne’s lawyers in the United Kingdom, Ben Keith and Roger Sahota, said it would be “an embarrassment” if he were to be sentenced to life.