Opinion ID: 1539320
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: jurisdiction and sovereignty of maine

Text: It is urged that by virtue of Section 1, Chapter 1, R.S.1954 and plaintiff's transfer to a place of confinement outside the State of Maine, that Maine has relinquished its sovereignty and lost jurisdiction of his person, as well as violated his constitutional rights. The constitutional aspect has been discussed. Section 32-A provides that by means of the contract, which we have discussed, with a copy of the mittimus    under which the prisoner is held is authority for the United States to hold said prisoner on behalf of the state of Maine. The statute specifically retains Maine sovereignty. The plaintiff is not involved in a problem of sovereignty, for by the statute appropriate officers of the United States Government (under U.S.C.A., supra) accept and hold the prisoner as agents of the State of Maine, at Maine's expense and subject to Maine's demand. To petitioner's contention that the act of the respondent in causing him to be removed from within the territorial boundaries of the State of Maine resulted in the loss of Maine's jurisdiction over his person, we must reply that upon the record the question is moot. Section 32-A does not spell out the mechanics of the transfer and the record here discloses only that this transfer was accomplished by officers employed by the State of Maine. The official identity of the officers is unknown to us. Section 32-A, by its terms, does not suggest the use of officers without legal power to accomplish the transfer. To plaintiff's contention that the intent of the legislature in Section 32-A governs and that the legislature could not have intended a prisoner to be removed from within the territorial jurisdiction of Maine, it must be recorded that the United States Bureau of Prisons has never had a federal penal institution within such limits of the State of Maine and it is unlikely that the legislature contemplated Section 32-A to be invoked only in cases where state prisoners could be transferred to a federal institution within the said limits of the State.