LONDON — Kimberlee Singler, the Colorado mom who is accused of drugging and then killing two of her children before fleeing to the United Kingdom, has been told by a British court that she can be extradited back home to stand trial.
Singler watched silently and without emotion during a brief hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court in central London on Friday, where her challenge to a U.S. extradition order was rejected by District Judge John Zani.
However, the case will now be considered by the British home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who has the final say on some high-profile extradition cases.
And Singler intends to appeal the decision the British Supreme Court and then possibly at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, further delaying her return. She faces life in prison upon a successful conviction.
Singler, 36, was arrested in London on Dec. 30, 2023 days after the lifeless bodies of her children, aged 7 and 9, were found at her home in Colorado Springs.
She is accused of fatally shooting and stabbing them, as well as injuring a third child who survived and told police of their ordeal, and has been charged in absentia of seven counts, include two first degree murder charges.
Singler's legal team had been resisting extradition on the basis that she denies the charges and that she would face a life sentence with no chance of parole, something judged to be cruel and unusual punishment according to European human rights law.
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights — a legally binding statute followed by 46 countries, including the U.K. — prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
But in a written judgment, Zani said he was satisfied that her extradition would be lawful because there was a "working mechanism of review in the form of executive clemency," meaning that, while highly unlikely, the governor of Colorado could choose to to pardon her.
The judge said he was "of the firm opinion that the defendant's extradition to the United States of America to face criminal prosecution complies" with her constitutional rights. Singler has 14 days in which to launch an appeal.
Westminster Magistrates Court has heard graphic detail of her alleged crimes in a series of hearings over the past year, in which Singler's attorney sparred with the U.K. government's attorney over the legality of her extradition.
Edward Fitzgerald, Singler's attorney, said she was "coping very well" in prison, where she remains for the time being.
