Opinion ID: 194806
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Successive Appeals.

Text: Our jurisdictional odyssey is not yet ended. Noting that article 3(b) provides for appeals to the district court or court of appeals, the government asserted below that this disjunctive language restricts the parties to one bite of the apple and rules out successive appeals (such as Howard essays). In this court, however, the government backtracks, appearing to concede that, notwithstanding Howard's earlier appeal, we have jurisdiction over this appeal. But, since this point implicates appellate jurisdiction and is non-frivolous, see post (Campbell, J., concurring), we are not at liberty simply to accept the government's concession. See supra note 2. We proceed to ponder 10 the point. We think the language of article 3(b) dictates a construction antithetic to that which the government urged below. Because the Supplementary Treaty contemplates the initiation of extradition proceedings before either a district judge or a magistrate judge, see S. Exec. Rep. No. 17, supra, at 5, 6, 8, article 3(b) prudently provides for review by the district court, or court of appeals, as appropriate. In other words, the disjunctive or is to be read not as an unusual, but understated, restriction on the number of appeals; rather, the term specifies that the ordinary sequence of appeals should apply. This conclusion is supported by the reference in article 3(b) to the appeals process, as well as by the legislative history. See S. Exec. Rep. No. 17, supra, at 8. We will not cart coal to Newcastle. Not even so much as a solitary word or phrase in the Supplementary Treaty intimates an intent to prohibit successive appeals and it is not the courts' business to rewrite a treaty's text.3 Accordingly, we hold that article 3(b) permits successive appeals, see, e.g., United States v. Van Fossan, 899 F.2d 636, 637-38 (7th Cir. 1990) (holding that, in the absence of an express provision prohibiting successive appeals, the criminal misdemeanor statute, 18 U.S.C. 3402 (1988), permits them); 3We appreciate the force of the policy considerations