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By Elizabeth Kruska
I happen to like extradition cases. I like them because extradition is really very technical and very precise (except for when it’s not, but this is not one of those times). Sometimes it’s a little bit like solving a puzzle, which I also find very appealing.
Basically, extradition is like a slide. It’s meant to slide someone to a state where they’ve got legal troubles from the state where they were found. If a person is found in State A, but has an outstanding warrant for a crime in State B, extradition is the means by which the person gets back to State A to clear up whatever the problem is. State A doesn’t have any jurisdiction to hear the case that originated in State B. State A does have an obligation to make the person available to State B so that State B can come get them to deal with their State B charges.
It’s sometimes referred to as a fugitive case. It’s not really as romantic as it sounds; rarely does it involve Dr. Richard Kimble or a one-armed man. And it doesn’t even necessarily involve someone fleeing a jurisdiction, running for a border, or being hotly pursued by law enforcement. It just means that someone’s alleged to have committed a crime in State B and then is later found in State A.
Here’s how this works. Suspect commits a crime in State B, and a warrant gets issued for the suspect. Suspect is found in State A. Now, because of those pesky state lines, and sovereignty and all that jazz, the State B police can’t just traipse on over and pick up the suspect. State A, by federal and state laws, is required to hold on to the suspect for a period of time until the suspect can be returned to State B. One of two things can happen. The suspect can say, “Yeah, I’m Sam Suspect, I’ll wait here until State B picks me up.” Then they wait a reasonable period of time, and State B picks them up.
Or the suspect can demand that they be formally extradited to State B. In doing this, the governor of State B must make a request to State A’s governor to serve the suspect with an extradition warrant. Then the suspect must be advised of his or her rights under that warrant. The suspect can then challenge the warrant by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Or the suspect can then get picked up by the other state.
The defenses to an extradition warrant are pretty limited. Remember, at this point, the point of the fugitive petition and subsequent warrant are just to get the suspect from State A to State B. If the suspect has a defense to the underlying crime or has a legal issue that needs to be challenged relative to the crime, State B is the place to do it. State A just facilitates the getting there.
That might feel like a long walk in to this opinion, but it’s meant to be helpful in explaining how this case gets to be A Thing.
Mr. Perron was arrested in 2014 in Westchester County, New York for some fraud-type crimes. While that was going on, he was also indicted federally in Florida for some other fraud-type crimes. I assume many hoops were jumped through, Mr. Perron pled guilty to the New York charges, and then was returned to the feds to deal with the federal case. He got a federal sentence, but it was silent about whether it was concurrent to the New York sentence. I don’t want to spoil the end of this for you, but because of this silence, he might have gotten more than he bargained for. And not in a “you’re the 100th customer so you get free ice cream” sort of way. More like a “there’s a federal statute that suggests you’re going to do more time in jail than you think” sort of way.
He did his federal time in a facility in Berlin, New Hampshire. When that time was up, the State of New Hampshire took him in to custody on behalf of the State of New York because there was an active warrant. He challenged that, and it turned out the New York documents were deficient in some way. This led to that fugitive case being dismissed and Mr. Perron being released because New Hampshire no longer had any authority to hold him in jail.
So, he went to Vermont. The Vermont State Police found out he was in Vermont and arrested him on the New York warrant, as it was still outstanding, having not been addressed through the New Hampshire proceeding. Now, remember, both New Hampshire and Vermont in this instance aren’t dealing with whatever the warrant is for, they’re just alerted that New York requests the pleasure of Mr. Perron’s company, and that they’ll handle whatever facts need to be handled when he arrives back in the Empire State.
Mr. Perron’s friendly local Vermont State Troopers picked him up on the New York warrant and took him to a Vermont jail.
Mr. Perron, having been to this particular rodeo just recently, challenged his arrest by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He’d been served with two separate extradition warrants – one for escape from custody and one for a grand larceny charge – signed by Vermont’s Governor and he challenged those warrants. The trial court denied his petition, which he appeals.
His arguments on appeal are that he no longer had a New York sentence to serve and that he is not a “fugitive,” as used in the extradition context.
SCOV affirms the trial court’s denial of his habeas petitions.
First of all, SCOV notes there isn’t a whole lot a receiving state – here, Vermont – can do about another state’s extradition request. This goes back to what I explained above; the several states are obligated under federal law (the Extradition Clause of the Constitution, for starters) to facilitate extradition. Even though the Constitution includes specific language about extradition, there’s also the federal Extradition Act of 1793, which if you’re doing the same math I am, should lead you to believe this is an old, well-established law in our fine nation and that the states have been bound by this rule since Martha Washington was the First Lady.
The other thing is that Vermont also has extradition laws. We’ve adopted the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act. It requires that the Vermont Governor issue an extradition warrant, but that can’t be done unless the demanding state – so here, New York – ponies up some documentation to support coming in to a sovereign state to remove someone. They’ve got to show that the accused was in New York at the time of the original offense and subsequently fled. They have to show that the accused is currently in Vermont. They have to show that the accused is charged with a crime or has violated terms of bail, probation, or parole.
The question at that point is limited to the validity of the documentation supporting the warrant and whether the person is the right person. When a Vermont court is asked to review an extradition warrant and the documentation, it’s not to say, “well, you probably have a defense to larceny” it’s “are you the person and are these the right pieces of paper?” If the answer to the latter is “yes,” the petitioner is released to the custody of the demanding state and handles the factual inquiries back there.
Basically, he hops on the extradition slide and slides to New York.
Mr. Perron has an interesting argument about whether or not he still owes time on his New York sentence since the federal sentence was silent about whether it was concurrent. The Vermont court isn’t in a position to say anything about the two other jurisdictions’ sentencing rules, but it looks like he probably still has time to serve in New York. But the Vermont extradition court is not the right court to hash out this particular factual inquiry; that’s something that needs to be addressed in New York.
He also argues that he’s not a fugitive because as soon as he pled to his New York charge, New York rendered him to the feds, and this was beyond his control.
Nope. He didn’t flee, like someone making a run for the border; he was initially in one jurisdiction and then he was in another jurisdiction. It doesn’t change the fact he’s still got stuff pending in New York and that he wasn’t in New York to be able to deal with it. As I mentioned before, there are these pesky state lines in the way, and it doesn’t matter how he crossed one (or several, as the case appears), or if he wanted to or he meant to, the fact is that the New York authorities can’t just amble over into Vermont to pick him up without facilitation and the facilitation to do that is extradition.
So, to sum up: the warrants were properly issued, and Mr. Perron has to go back to New York to deal with his miscellaneous problems.
Again, this is a second summary of the same. Here's the first. The editor has really got to figure out a better system.
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