Clark v. Commissioner of Correction

868 A.2d 798, 88 Conn. App. 178, 2005 Conn. App. LEXIS 112
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedMarch 22, 2005
DocketAC 24683
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 868 A.2d 798 (Clark v. Commissioner of Correction) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Connecticut Appellate Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Clark v. Commissioner of Correction, 868 A.2d 798, 88 Conn. App. 178, 2005 Conn. App. LEXIS 112 (Colo. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

Opinion

PETERS, J.

In this petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the petitioner seeks relief from a writ of extradition sending him to Texas to face criminal charges in that state. Under the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act (act), General Statutes § 54-157 et seq., he is subject to mandatory extradition only if he is a fugitive from justice in Texas. The petitioner claims that he is not a fugitive from justice in Texas because he was taken involuntarily from Texas to this state in order to stand trial on criminal charges here. In the absence of any disputed questions of fact, the issue he raises calls for statutory construction of the act. The trial court concluded that the act authorized his extradition and dismissed the petitioner’s application for the writ. The petitioner has appealed. We reverse the judgment of the trial court.

The petitioner, Kenneth Clark, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in which he claimed that, because he is not a fugitive from justice, the respondent, the commissioner of correction,1 is illegally retaining the [180]*180petitioner in his custody. On April 3,2003, the petitioner was arrested in Connecticut without a warrant, pursuant to General Statutes § 54-170,2 as a fugitive from justice on an outstanding felony charge from the state of Texas.3 After the petitioner refused to waive his right to challenge extradition, the trial court, B. Kaplan, J., ordered the petitioner confined to enable the state to obtain a governor’s extradition warrant.4

The facts of this case are uncontested. In 1996, the petitioner had been extradited involuntarily from Texas to this state because of an outstanding parole violation. After having been returned to this state, the petitioner was incarcerated here until April, 2000.

In pursuit of his request for extradition in the present case, the governor of Texas sent to our governor a written demand, dated April 17,2003, for the extradition of the petitioner. See General Statutes § 54-157 et seq. In accordance with General Statutes § 54-159,5 the [181]*181extradition demand stated that the petitioner had been charged with the commission of a crime in the state of Texas, “was present in [Texas] at the time of the commission of said crime,” “thereafter fled from the justice of [Texas],” and had taken refuge in Connecticut. The extradition demand consistently referred to the petitioner as a “fugitive.”6 In response, on April 29, 2003, our governor exercised his power, pursuant to General Statutes § 54-163,7 to issue a warrant for the arrest of the petitioner.8 The petitioner was arrested on May 2, 2003.

The petitioner’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus to challenge his status as a fugitive was heard by the habeas court, Hon. William L. Hadden, Jr., judge trial referee. Judge Hadden found that “the extradition papers [were] in order in satisfaction of General Stat[182]*182utes § 54-159, that the petitioner has been identified as the individual the state of Texas seeks to extradite, there is probable cause to believe he committed a crime in that state, and he is a fugitive from justice.” Accordingly, Judge Hadden dismissed the habeas petition and ordered the petitioner extradited to Texas. The petitioner now appeals.

As a preliminary matter, we note that the parties stand on common ground with regard to three important issues. First, the parties agree that the petitioner left Texas involuntarily when he was extradited to Connecticut in 1996. Second, they agree that Connecticut’s version of the act draws a distinction between the extradition of a fugitive and the extradition of a nonfugitive. A demand for a fugitive imposes on the governor a mandatory duty of compliance,9 whereas a demand for a nonfugitive authorizes the governor to exercise discretion to decide whether to order extradition.10 Third, the parties agree that our resolution of the disputed issue of whether the petitioner is a fugitive from justice is dispositive for the outcome of this case. If we conclude that the petitioner was not a fugitive from justice, the respondent agrees with the petitioner that the present extradition demand was invalid.

The underlying issue in this appeal, therefore, concerns the relative scope of the mandatory and discretionary provisions of the act, as enacted in Connecticut. [183]*183Because this is a question of statutory interpretation, our review is plenary. See, e.g., Harris v. Commissioner of Correction, 271 Conn. 808, 818, 860 A.2d 715 (2004). General Statutes § 1-2z provides that “[t]he meaning of a statute shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered.” If, on the other hand, the meaning of the statute is not plain and unambiguous, then “we [also] look to the words of the statute itself, to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general subject matter for [interpretive guidance].” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Boyd, 272 Conn. 72, 76, 861 A.2d 1155 (2004).

The petitioner argues that § 5 of the act,11 enacted in this state as General Statutes § 54-161,12 plainly establishes the principle that a person is not a fugitive if he was removed involuntarily from the demanding state by government compulsion. From this premise, he contends that, because he was not a fugitive under § 54-161, the extradition demand from the state of Texas was invalid because it sought to extradite him as such. This misconception caused the Texas demand to mis[184]*184lead our governor into believing that he had no discretion in deciding whether to extradite the petitioner.

The respondent does not challenge the petitioner’s reading of § 54-161. It argues, instead, that General Statutes § 54-158 is the applicable statute because it reflects the holdings of Connecticut common-law cases decided before the enactment of the act. It is undisputed that this case law held that a person could be deemed a fugitive even if he had been removed involuntarily from the demanding state by government compulsion. Moulthrope v. Matus, 139 Conn. 272, 277-78, 93 A.2d 149 (1952), cert. denied, 345 U.S. 926, 73 S. Ct. 785, 97 L. Ed. 1357 (1953). The question is whether Moulthrope has been overruled by the enactment of § 54-161.

I

The uniform act was promulgated to supplement federal extradition law. Federal extradition law, which derives its authority from the United States constitution13 and from federal statute,14

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Related

Clark v. Commissioner of Correction
875 A.2d 42 (Supreme Court of Connecticut, 2005)

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Bluebook (online)
868 A.2d 798, 88 Conn. App. 178, 2005 Conn. App. LEXIS 112, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clark-v-commissioner-of-correction-connappct-2005.