In re Lambert
In re Lambert
Opinion of the Court
Petitioner Felicia Lambert appeals from a superior court order denying a habeas corpus petition seeking to prevent her extradition to Massachusetts. She contends: (1) the documents accompanying the extradition request did not comply with statutory requirements; and (2) her detention was in violation of federal law. We affirm.
On April 5, 2001, following a jury trial in the Chittenden District Court, petitioner was convicted of certain misdemeanor charges. She was released on bail pending sentencing. Several days later, she was arrested on fugitive-from-justice charges, arraigned and released on conditions. On May 10, the Acting Governor of Massachusetts filed a request for extradition with the Governor of Vermont, stating that petitioner had violated the terms of her probation stemming from a felony larceny conviction in Massachusetts. The Governor of Vermont issued a warrant of extradition on May 30. Petitioner was arrested on the warrant on June 22, and held without bail.
On July 20, petitioner was sentenced on the Vermont misdemeanor convictions and began serving her sentence. On November 30, the district court granted a motion to stay execution of the sentence pending appeal. Petitioner remained incarcerated, however, on the Governor’s warrant. One week later, on December 7, petitioner filed a petition for habeas corpus, claiming that the Massachusetts documents supporting the extradition request were deficient under 13 V.S.A. § 4943, and further asserting that her continued incarceration violated due process.
In her habeas petition, petitioner claimed that the Record of Criminal Case failed to satisfy § 4943(a)’s requirement of a “judgment of conviction.” She relied principally on In re Sousie, 147 Vt. 330, 331, 516 A.2d 142, 143-44 (1986), in which this Court held that a Massachusetts request for extradition accompanied by a document entitled “warrant” failed to satisfy the statutory requirement. The warrant was essentially a mittimus, or transportation order, that was signed by a court clerk and that also indicated the petitioner had been convicted of a crime and the length of the sentence imposed. Id. at 331, 516 A. 2d at 143. Sousie relied, in turn, on a Florida Court of Appeals decision holding that extradition required at a minimum “ ‘the document representing the official court action of conviction.’ ” Id. (quoting Britton v. State, 447 So. 2d 458, 459 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1984)). The trial court here distinguished Sousie on this basis, observing that the “Record of Criminal Case” had been signed by a “clerk-magistrate” who is authorized under Massachusetts law to perform certain judicial duties, and represented a “formal and regular document generated by the Massachusetts trial courts in the course of ‘official court action.’ ” Accordingly, it found that the document satisfied the requirements of §4943.
Petitioner on appeal renews her claim that the Massachusetts Record of Criminal Case was insufficient to support the extradition warrant. We are persuaded, however, that the trial court’s ruling was essentially sound. Our conclusion is
The constitutional provision has been implemented through federal statute, see 18 U.S.C. § 3182, as well as through individual state extradition acts, most of which — like our own — are modeled on the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act. See 11 Uniform Laws Annotated 97 (1995); see Lovejoy v. State, 148 Vt. 239, 243-45, 531 A.2d 921, 924-25 (1987); see generally L. Abramson, Extradition in America: Of Uniform Acts and Governmental Discretion, 33 Baylor L. Rev. 793, 794 (1981) (discussing history of interstate extradition). In applying these provisions, however, the high Court has counseled that “the courts of an asylum state are bound by Art. IV, § 2,” and that once the governor of the asylum state has granted extradition, a court considering release on habeas corpus can do no more than determine whether certain facial prerequisites have been satisfied, including “whether the extradition documents on their face are in order.” Doran, 439 U.S. at 288-89. In an early decision addressing the sufficiency of an affidavit to support extradition, the Supreme Court cautioned against unduly technical judicial interpretations of these procedural requirements.
When it appears, as it does here, that the affidavit in question was regarded by the executive authority of the respective States concerned as a sufficient basis, in law, for their acting — the one in making a requisition, the other in issuing a warrant for the arrest of the alleged fugitive — the judiciary should not interfere, on habeas corpus, and discharge the accused, upon technical grounds, and unless it be clear that what was done was in plain contravention of law.
Compton v. Alabama, 214 U.S. 1, 8 (1909).
In a seminal California case, Justice Traynor similarly counseled that courts evaluating the sufficiency of the demanding state’s extradition papers were not to “exalt form over substance.” In re Cooper, 349 P.2d 956, 959 (Cal. 1960). Consistent with this approach, constitutional and statutory provisions applicable to extradition have been liberally construed in favor of the demanding state. See Biddinger v. Commissioner, 245 U.S. 128, 133 (1917) (extradition laws “have not been construed narrowly and technically by the courts as if they were penal laws, but liberally to effect their important purpose”).
Viewed in light of these principles, the document submitted by the Massachusetts authorities must be deemed sufficient for extradition purposes. Unlike our own Rules of Criminal Procedure, which
Confronted with similar circumstances, we note that other courts have uniformly recognized judgment>of-conviction “equivalents.” In State v. Luster, 596 So. 2d 454, 455-56 (Fla. 1992), for example, the Florida Supreme Court concluded that an “abstract of judgment” certified by the clerk of the California court in which the petitioner had been convicted satisfied Florida’s statutory requirement of a “judgment of conviction” for extradition purposes. The Florida court noted that “California treats the clerk’s abstract of judgment as though it were an equivalent of Florida’s written order of judgment,” and reasoned that failure to accord it equal status “would be a clear violation of the spirit and letter of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, the Supremacy Clause, and the Extradition Clause of the federal Constitution.” Id. at 456. It is interesting to note that in so holding, the Florida Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling which had relied on Britton v. State, 447 So. 2d 458 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1984), the principal authority cited in Sousie. See Lawrence v. Luster, 575 So. 2d 220, 221 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1991). Indeed, the dissenting justice on the lower court, whose views ultimately prevailed, had argued that Britton was “incorrectly decided,” and that its “attempt at technical exactitude defeats the summary nature of extradition proceedings.” Id. at 222 (Ferguson, J., dissenting).
Other cases are in accord with the Florida decision. See, e.g., Smedley v. Holt, 541 P.2d 17, 19-20 (Alaska 1975) (since California did not require signed judgment of conviction but merely oral pronouncement carried into clerk’s minutes, Alaska would honor extradition request despite absence of signed judgment of conviction); Butcher v. Caldwell, 677 P.2d 342, 344 (Colo. 1984) (certified copy of clerk’s minutes indicating that guilty plea was entered- and accepted by trial court in Minnesota was sufficient documentation of “conviction” under Colorado extradition statute); State v. Snider, 465 P.2d 739, 740 (Or. Ct. App. 1970) (California “abstract of judgment” satisfied Oregon’s requirement of “judgment of conviction” for purpose of extradition).
Thus, the overwhelming weight of authority supports the principle of affording full faith and credit to extradition requests supported by documentation that' can fairly be construed as equivalent to a judgment of conviction under the law of the requesting state. Whatever its merits , on the particular facts before it, therefore, Sousie is not controlling here. The supporting documents submitted by the Acting Governor of Massachusetts were sufficient for extradition purposes.
Petitioner also claims on appeal that her continued incarceration violates federal law requiring her discharge if she is not delivered to Massachusetts within thirty days of her arrest on the extradition warrant. See 18 U.S.C. § 3182 (requiring asylum state to deliver person detained on extradition warrant to agent of requesting state and further providing that “[i]f no such agent appears within thirty days from the time of the arrest, the prisoner may be discharged”). This issue was not raised before the trial court, and therefore was not preserved for review on appeal. See Jones, 160 Vt. at 448, 631 A.2d at 846. Nor has petitioner asserted plain error in this regard. Accordingly, we need not address the issue. See State v. White, 172 Vt. 493, 499, 782 A.2d 1187, 1192 (2001) (where defendant failed to raise issue below or claim plain error on appeal, Court would not address it). We note, however, that the vast majority of courts that have considered the question have concluded that the thirty-day provision in the federal statute is permissive, not mandat tory. See, e.g., Long v. Cauthron, 731 S.W.2d 792, 794 (Ark. Ct. App. 1987) (“The thirty-day provision in the federal statute does no more than release the asylum state from its constitutional obligation to hold the prisoner if the demanding state does not appear within thirty days. Nothing in it prohibits a state from holding him for a reasonable time thereafter.”); Breckenridge v. Hindman, 691 P.2d 405, 408 (Kan. Ct. App. 1984) (“Most courts have given a permissive interpretation to the word ‘may’ [in § 3182].”); Godsey v. Houston, 584 So. 2d 389, 391 (Miss. 1991) (“18 U.S.C.A. § 3182 does not mandate discharge if the agent of the demanding state fails to appear within thirty days”); Prettyman v. Karnopp, 222 N.W.2d 362, 365 (Neb. 1974) (“The language appear
At .oral argument, petitioner also renewed her habeas claim that her continued incarceration violated due process. The contention is unpersuasive. Although incarcerated on June 22, 2001, on the extradition warrant, she also began serving her sentence on the Vermont convictions on July 20, and remained incarcerated on those counts until the sentence was stayed in late November. Where the subject of an extradition warrant has been charged or gbnvicted under the laws of this state, our statutory scheme expressly authorizes the state to hold that person until the sentence has been served. See 13 V.S.A. § 4959. Moreover, even if we assumed that petitioner’s incarceration during this period was attributable to the extradition warrant, we note that she did not file a habeas petition until December 7, which Was denied on December 20. Accordingly, we discern no basis to conclude that her continued incarceration was unreasonable.
Affirmed.
The statute also requires “a statement by the executive authority of the demanding state that the person claimed has escaped from confinement or has broken the terms of his bail, probation or parole,” and authentication of the documents by the executive authority making the demand. 13 V.S.A. § 4943(a). No claim is made that the supporting documents were deficient in this regard.
The other supporting documents included a signed statement by the Acting Governor of Massachusetts attesting to the fact that petitioner had been charged with a violation of probation in Massachusetts stemming from a larceny conviction and had fled from Massachusetts and taken refuge in Vermont; an affidavit signed by a clerk-magistrate of the Massachusetts trial court stating that petitioner had pled guilty to the crime of larceny over $250, was placed on probation until April 1994, and had violated probation resulting in an arrest warrant in 1990; a Massachusetts trial court document signed by petitioner setting forth the terms of her probation; a warrant issued in October 1990 ordering petitioner to appear on charges of probation violations; and various affidavits attesting to the authenticity of the documents presented.
This section provides: “A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.”
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