Opinion ID: 177231
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The bail-jumping

Text: Claiming that he needed to return to Canada for medical treatment, Kinsella asked the magistrate judge in May 2005 to modify his release conditions so he could live there. He promised that he would not miss any court hearings. Releasing him on $5,000 bail, the magistrate judge still required Kinsella to appear at scheduled proceedings and to stay in touch with the PSO. Kinsella promised he would but did not keep his word: after the grand jury returned a superseding indictment extending the conspiratorial period to December 2004, Kinsella stopped calling probation (though PSO Maddox did not turn him in) and missed a scheduled re-arraignment. Kinsella had known about the re-arraignment dateAugust 2, 2005, his lawyer, Matthew Erickson, had told him, stressing that Kinsella had to be therebut Kinsella stayed in Canada anyway. Declaring him a fugitive from justice, the magistrate judge signed a warrant for Kinsella's arrest. Erickson called Kinsella that day and learned that Kinsella had made no effort to cross the border into the United States. Mentioning the arrest warrant, Erickson told Kinsella that an indictment for failing to appear would no doubt followand it did, three months later. Apparently unmoved by all this, Kinsella chose not to turn himself in. Canadian authorities placed Kinsella in custody in October 2006. Challenging his extradition under that country's laws, Kinsella lost an appeal and returned to the United States in September 2007, in cuffs and escorted by Mounties. Facing a superseding indictment that added a bail-jumping count to the old drug charges, Kinsella asked Judge Woodcock to sever the drug counts from the bail-jumping count for trial. Granting the motion, Judge Woodcock ordered a trial on the bail-jumping count first, followed by a trial on the drug charges.