Opinion ID: 766011
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Delay in Extradition

Text: 29 Petitioner's final argument concerns the fourteen-year delay between the issuance of the Canadian arrest warrant and Canada's formal request for his extradition. This delay allegedly abridged his Fifth Amendment right to due process because, among other things, it deprived him of the opportunity to serve his Canadian and American murder sentences concurrently. 30 In support of his position, he cites a one-paragraph concurrence in an Eleventh Circuit case that states, Although the combination of delay and other factors could entitle a United States citizen subject to extradition to a foreign country to due process protection, that right being superior to the government's treaty obligation, there are no facts present in this case to trigger that right. Martin v. Warden, 993 F.2d 824, 830 (11th Cir. 1993) (concurrence). In Martin, the court upheld the extradition of the petitioner, a United States citizen, to Canada despite the fact that a seventeen-year delay separated his alleged crime from his extradition. In doing so, the panel explicitly held there is no due process right to a speedy extradition. Id. at 825; see also McMaster v. United States, 9 F.3d 47, 48-49 (8th Cir. 1993) (no due process rights in extradition proceeding unless the United States bases extradition upon impermissible factors such as race, creed, sex or other exceptional constitutional limitations) (citing In re Burt, 737 F.2d 1477, 1487 (7th Cir. 1984)); Kamrin v. United States, 725 F.2d 1225, 1227 (9th Cir. 1984) (unless extradition treaty itself guarantees full United States rights to due process, they do not apply). 31 In short, petitioner cites no viable authority for the proposition that his due process rights were infringed by Canada's delay in seeking his extradition.