Court Opinion

ID: 9626988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:30:23.389818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:50.876748
License: Public Domain

NIX, Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree that where one commits a crime against a state, is apprehended, convicted and confined, can be voluntarily released and delivered to a sister state without condition, reservation, or qualification, or extradited to another state before the expiration of his punishment, and then be returned to that state as a fugitive from justice. A state has the inherent right and duty to apprehend and punish those who violate her laws and to keep them in custody until the punishment is completely satisfied, but to deliver him to another state without condition, agreement, or qualification prior to the expiration of his punishment waives the right to return the prisoner. It, in the opinion of this writer constitutes a waiver of jurisdiction. It was said in People ex rel. Barrett v. Bartley, 383 Ill. 437, 50 N.E.2d 517, 521, 147 A.L.R. 935:
“That a prisoner cannot be handed from one jurisdiction to another for the purpose of trial, conviction and service of a new sentence before being returned to the asylum State for service of the unexpired sentence, without violating his constitutional rights.”
I cannot agree with the majority opinion which in substance proclaims that the adoption of the Uniform Extradition Act serves as a complete barrier to the aged and time-honored rule that a state may waive jurisdiction of a prisoner by its voluntary release. However in the opinion of this writer this constituted an erroneous construction of that Act; the person sought to be extradited must be substantially charged with a crime against the demanding state and to be a fugitive from justice. How can it be said that petitioner, who was loaded in a car by the Texas authorities and delivered to the prison at McAlester, is considered to be a fugitive from Texas?
I have been led to believe that the practical definition of the term “fugitive” is “one who with knowledge that he is being sought pursuant to court process absents himself or flees” or “one who commits a crime in one state and then withdraws himself from that state without waiting to abide the consequences of his act.” It is peculiarly coincidental that one of the early land mark cases on the subject involved the same demanding state, wherein Texas attempted to extradite a prisoner from the state of California under a most similar set of facts. In re Whittington, 34 Cal.App. 344, 167 P. 404 the California court said:
“One is not a fugitive from justice from the state of Texas, so as to be subject to extradition thereto, where, having been arrested in that state for *355an offense there committed, he was with permission of its authorities taken on process under extradition to the state of California there to answer to a charge of having committed a crime, though the latter charge was later dismissed.”
It is unnecessary to elaborate on this subject as I have heretofore expressed my opinion in a rather lengthy dissent involving the same question in the case of In re Langley, Okl.Cr., 325 P.2d 1094 where numerous authorities are cited to support my stand.