Court Opinion

ID: 9768028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:39:04.01604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:35.640945
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, Justice, concurring. I agree with the court’s opinion, but I also point out that Padilla’s demand for a hearing in Arkansas is plainly a ruse by which he hopes to avoid a detainer that would certainly still exist even if the hearing were held. He is charged with not reporting to his probation officer in Arkansas and with absconding. His present petition itself proves the charge, for it is made from a prison in California after he committed an offense there. The hearing would be a five-minute formality at which Padilla’s own petition would alone prove that his probation should be revoked. If Padilla wishes to pay the expenses involved in having an Arkansas police officer go to California, return Padilla to Arkansas for the useless hearing, and then return him to California, he is free to do so. But it would be absurd for this court to distort the plain meaning of the statute merely to enable Padilla to accomplish his scheme of holding the taxpayers of Arkansas for ransom.