Opinion ID: 386853
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reed's Arrest

Text: 9 Reed contends that his abduction from Bimini violated both his constitutional rights and international law, and requires us to exercise our supervisory power over the district courts. He bases his claim upon United States v. Toscanino, 500 F.2d 267 (2d Cir. 1974), which involved an Italian citizen who alleged that he had been kidnapped from Uruguay to Brazil where he was tortured and interrogated for seventeen days before being brought to the United States for trial in the Eastern District of New York. We held that this abusive conduct, if it had actually occurred, could not be tolerated without debasing the processes of justice, and that the defendant was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his abduction claim if he offered some credible proof that the actions against him were taken by or at the direction of United States officials. In Toscanino we sought to resolve the conflict between the ninety-year-old teaching of Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 7 S.Ct. 225, 30 L.Ed. 421 (1886), as followed in Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952), that the Government's power to prosecute a defendant is not impaired by the illegality of the method by which it acquires control over him, and the doctrine of Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952), as extended in various cases involving, for example, illegal search and seizure and entrapment, where due process was held to bar the Government from exploiting its own deliberate lawlessness in bringing the accused to trial. In striking the balance in Toscanino, we invoked Justice Brandeis's oft-quoted dissent in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 483-85, 48 S.Ct. 564, 574-75, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928), admonishing the Government not to engage in lawless behavior in order to secure a conviction. 10 The district court in the instant case, however, treated Toscanino as having been qualified by United States ex rel. Lujan v. Gengler, 510 F.2d 62 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 1001, 95 S.Ct. 2400, 44 L.Ed.2d 668 (1975). In Lujan, agents of the United States had kidnapped the defendant in Bolivia and kept him in custody for six days until he was flown to New York and arrested. We distinguished that case from Toscanino on the basis that Lujan had not been subjected to any acts of torture, terror, or custodial interrogation: Lacking from Lujan's petition is any allegation of that complex of shocking governmental conduct sufficient to convert an abduction which is simply illegal into one which sinks to a violation of due process, id. at 66. In Lujan, therefore, we followed Ker and Frisbie. See Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 119, 95 S.Ct. 854, 865, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975) (reaffirming the rule of Ker and Frisbie); see also United States v. Lira, 515 F.2d 68, 70 (2d Cir.) (Toscanino does not apply if alleged mistreatment was not at the hands of representatives of the United States government), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 847, 96 S.Ct. 87, 46 L.Ed.2d 69 (1975). 11 The instant case falls on the Lujan side of the balance rather than on the Toscanino side. While we must assume, for purposes of this appeal, that it was United States government agents who allegedly enticed Reed onto the airplane, and that they did so under false pretenses and with the use of a revolver and threatening language, the conduct involved was not gross mistreatment but rather is little different from the circumstances of an ordinary arrest where officers may use a gun to make sure that the arrestee does not escape. According to Reed's affidavit, the plane was a small one occupied by only two other persons, the pilot and the agent with the gun sitting in the copilot's seat. The amount of force used may well have been necessary. Here, as in Lujan, there was none of the cruel, inhuman and outrageous treatment allegedly suffered by Toscanino, 510 F.2d at 65. Indeed, the coercion was not even as serious as that involved in Frisbie, where the Supreme Court declined to vacate the conviction even though the defendant allegedly had been blackjacked before being abducted to another jurisdiction, see 342 U.S. at 520, 72 S.Ct. at 510. Accordingly, we hold that the alleged circumstances of Reed's arrest do not sink to the level of a violation of due process. 2 12 The fact that the United States has an extradition treaty with the Bahamas 3 does not make any difference at all. The Bahamian government has not sought his return or made any protest nor is it likely to, since Reed is an American citizen. As we pointed out in Lujan, absent protest or objection by the offended sovereign, Reed has no standing to raise violation of international law as an issue. 510 F.2d at 67-68; see Toscanino, 500 F.2d at 279. 13 Reed argues beyond this, however, that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated, on the theory that any abduction from another country with which we have an extradition treaty is an unreasonable seizure. He also asserts a violation of the Fourth Amendment on the basis of the physical elements involved in the abduction, including the holding of a cocked gun to his head when on the airplane and the wrenching of his arm behind his back at the airport in Fort Lauderdale. We think, however, that these contentions confuse the reasonableness of making the seizure itself with the reasonableness of the place where and the manner in which the seizure is made. 14 The seizure of Reed was pursuant to an arrest warrant issued with probable cause and therefore reasonable for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. As noted above, Reed lacks standing to complain about the fact that he was abducted rather than extradited from the Bahamas. The existence of an extradition treaty provides an individual with certain procedural protections only when he is extradited. And abduction is no more or less objectionable simply because of the existence of an extradition treaty. As for the manner of the seizure, custody obtained by executing an arrest warrant is not invalidated because of the use of excessive force, even though the defendant might have a suit for damages against the government agents involved. 15 Reed finally argues that the district court should have disclaimed jurisdiction, on the theory that to countenance the actions of the government agents involved here breeds contempt for the law, mocks our stated concern for human rights, and jeopardizes our standing in the international community. Our views on the subject have been set forth in the previous opinions to which we have referred. To be sure we pointed out in Toscanino that, irrespective of minimum constitutional standards, we may in a given situation want to exercise our supervisory power to remedy abuses of a district court's process. 500 F.2d at 276; see Lira, 515 F.2d at 72-73 (Oakes, J., concurring). But we see no pattern of repeated abductions necessitating exercise of our supervisory power here in the interests of the greater good of preserving respect for law. Appellant, a fugitive from justice with no respect for the law whatsoever, is hardly in a position to urge otherwise.