Opinion ID: 1377667
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: legality of custody transfer in case at bar

Text: Because we have held that the forfeiture rule is implicated only when an unauthorized custody transfer takes place, the Commonwealth follows the lead of the Court of Appeals and argues that our existing precedent has erroneously equated a transfer of custody between Kentucky and federal authorities with the extradition process implicated in a state-to-state custody transfer. Accordingly, the Commonwealth argues that language in both Davis v. Harris and Balsley v. Commonwealth to the effect that the federal government can obtain custody of an inmate incarcerated by Kentucky only under the UCEA [30] is misguided because: (1) the federal government is not a party to the UCEA; and (2) it is not a party for a good reasonan inmate incarcerated in a Kentucky prison remains within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and thus extradition is unnecessary. Although we agree with each of these premises and with the Commonwealth's observation that, in the past, we have erroneously suggested that the UCEA is the proper means to transfer custody of an inmate between the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the federal government, we disagree with the conclusion drawn by the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has cited us no authority to support its contention that the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution [31] not only authorizes, but actually requires, Kentucky to surrender custody of an inmate to federal authorities bearing valid federal process. And, in fact, the authority we have located is directly to the contrary because, as the United States Supreme Court held in Covell v. Heyman, [32] state and federal courts exercise the authority of separate sovereigns: These courts [federal and state] do not belong to the same system, so far as their jurisdiction is concurrent; and although they co-exist in the same space, they are independent, and have no common superior. They exercise jurisdiction, it is true, within the same territory, but not in the same plane; and when one takes into its jurisdiction a specific thing, that res is as much withdrawn from the judicial power of the other, as if it had been carried physically into a different territorial sovereignty. To attempt to seize it by a foreign process is futile and void. [33] In order to preserve[ ] our two systems of courts from actual conflict of jurisdiction, [34] the United States Supreme Court has held that either sovereignfederal or statehas the right to exclusive custody of a prisoner who has been convicted of violating the laws of that sovereign and is permitted to exhaust its remedy ... before the other court shall attempt to take it for its purpose. [35] Accordingly, when the Commonwealth of Kentucky took custody of Appellee for a violation of our Penal Code, it had a right as a separate sovereign to require Appellee to serve the entirety of his four (4) year sentence before it relinquished custody. And thus, even if the PCDC records demonstrated that Appellee was released to the federal authorities holding a federal arrest warrantand they do not [36] no notion of federal supremacy would have authorized the transfer of custody. When an individual has violated the criminal laws of more than one jurisdiction, a sovereign may, however, at its sole discretion, elect to waive its right to  exclusive custody ... in order that the other may also subject him to conviction of crime against it. [37] And, while the Balsley Court correctly observed in 1968 that no Kentucky statute except, in its view, the UCEA [38] authorized Kentucky to surrender a prisoner to federal authorities for trial, the Kentucky General Assembly has subsequently enacted the provisions of the IAD, [39] to which the United States Government is a party. The IAD authorizes temporary custody transfers for exactly that purpose. [40] In the case at bar, however, Appellee was not transferred to federal custody under the provisions of the IAD. Nor was the custody transfer accomplished for the purpose of permitting a trial on a pending indictment. Instead, the federal authorities took custody of Appellee so that he could recommence service of an already-imposed federal prison sentence. The Commonwealth has not cited us to any statute that authorized it to release Appellee to federal authorities under those terms, and we thus conclude that the surrender of custody that occurred in this case would, under existing precedent, mandate forfeiture of Appellee's four (4) year prison sentence imposed by the Pulaski Circuit Court. Thus, we squarely face the issue upon which we accepted discretionary review and must decide whether we should overrule existing precedent and discard the forfeiture rule.