Opinion ID: 1255112
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pretransfer Hearing

Text: On September 26, 1980, while the appellant was serving a term of four to twenty-five years at the Ohio State Reformatory for felony convictions in Ohio, the Kanawha County prosecutor's office lodged a detainer and sought custody of the appellant, pursuant to Article IV of the Detainer Agreement. [6] The purpose of the detainer was to obtain a determination by the Circuit Court of Kanawha County of whether the appellant was a delinquent child within the provisions of West Virginia Code § 49-1-4(1) (1986 Replacement Vol.). The delinquency petition and detainer were based on a malicious wounding charge, unrelated to the instant homicides, pending against the appellant in Kanawha County. On October 28, 1980, two officers from the West Virginia Department of Public Safety travelled to Ohio, took the appellant into custody, and returned with him to West Virginia. The appellant was not granted a pretransfer hearing. The appellant subsequently made three inculpatory statements regarding the murders to the West Virginia authorities. One of the statements was tape recorded. All three were admitted into evidence at trial. In Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U.S. 433, 101 S.Ct. 703, 66 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981), the United States Supreme Court held that a prisoner incarcerated in a jurisdiction that has adopted the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act (Extradition Act) [7] is entitled to a hearing before being transferred to another jurisdiction pursuant to Article IV of the Detainer Agreement. [8] Before trial, the appellant moved to suppress the inculpatory statements, arguing inter alia that the denial of a pretransfer hearing rendered his detention unlawful, and that the inculpatory statements he gave while unlawfully detained should be excluded from evidence. The trial court rejected this argument and denied the appellant's motion to suppress. In support of this same position on appeal, the appellant argues by analogy that his transfer under the Detainer Agreement without a pretransfer hearing should be equated with an illegal arrest under the Fourth Amendment, thereby vitiating his confessions. Citing Syllabus Point 2 of State v. Stanley, 168 W.Va. 294, 284 S.E. 2d 367 (1981) and Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 478-88, 83 S.Ct. 407, 412-418, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), the appellant contends that his detention by West Virginia authorities without a pretransfer hearing is sufficiently analogous to an illegal arrest to cause application of the exclusionary rule. We disagree. While a prisoner denied a pretransfer hearing is entitled to seek habeas relief in the asylum state in order to prevent his transfer without a hearing, Cavallaro v. Wyrick, 701 F.2d 1273 (8th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1135, 103 S.Ct. 3120, 77 L.Ed.2d 1372 (1983), a prisoner who has been denied a pretransfer hearing is not entitled to have his convictions overturned after notice and a fair trial in the demanding state. Shack v. Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania, 776 F.2d 1170, 1172-74 (3rd Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1030, 106 S.Ct. 1234, 89 L.Ed.2d 342 (1986); see Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952); Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 7 S.Ct. 225, 30 L.Ed. 421 (1886). In Syllabus Point 4 of State v. Flint, ___ W.Va. ___, 301 S.E.2d 765 (1983), where a defendant sought dismissal of the murder charge against him because he had been extradited to West Virginia without benefit of counsel, this Court held that [o]nce a fugitive has been brought within the jurisdiction of West Virginia as the demanding state, the propriety of the extradition proceedings which occurred in the asylum state may not be challenged. The extradition proceedings may be challenged only in the asylum state. Thus, the general rule denies collateral attacks upon convictions imposed after notice and a fair trial. The appellant attempts to distinguish between challenging the detainer proceeding itself and challenging the admissibility of evidence obtained after the appellant's transfer without a pretransfer hearing. His argument is founded on the allegation that he was illegally detained. As we have said in prior cases, however, [w]e are unable to perceive a Fourth Amendment violation where the defendant is already in lawful custody on another unrelated charge. Grubbs, ___ W.Va. ___, ___ n. 8, 364 S.E.2d 824, 828 n. 8 (citing State v. Clawson, 165 W.Va. 588, 270 S.E.2d 659, 668-69 (1980)). When the detainer was lodged against the appellant, he was in lawful custody in the Ohio State Reformatory on unrelated Ohio convictions. Thus, his transfer to West Virginia without a pretransfer hearing did not violate his rights under the Fourth Amendment, [9] even though it did deny him the opportunity to test the legality of the detainer lodged against him. [10]