Ex parte McKnight

48 Ohio St. (N.S.) 588
Ohio Supreme Court·Decided November 17, 1891·Published

Opinion

Williams, C. J.

I. There is some conflict of authority upon the general question, whether, in a case of inter-state extradition the extradited person can lawfully be tried for any offense other than the one upon which he was surrendered, until he shall have had a reasonable time and opportunity to return to the surrendering state, after his trial and acquittal on the charge upon which he was extradited, or the expiration of his imprisonment under a conviction thereof; and there is, also, upon the same question, in cases of international extradition. It is not deemed necessary or important to enter upon an extended review or discussion, here, of the many cases on the subject. This court has held, that a person extradited under the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, known as the Ashburton treaty, cannot be prosecuted for a different crime than that specified in the warrant of extradition. State v. Vanderpool, 39 Ohio St. 273. And such has since been declared to be the law, by the Supreme Court of the United States. United States v. Rauscher, 119 U. S. 407. These decisions are based upon the interpretation of the treaty, and the acts of congress governing proceedings thereunder. The only provision of the treaty which relates to the extradition of criminals, is contained in the tenth article, which is as follows: “ It is agreed that the United States and Her Britannic Majesty shall, upon mutual requisitions by them, or their ministers, officers, or authorities, respectively made, deliver up to justice, all persons who, being charged with the crime of murder, or assault with intent to commit murder, or piracy, or arson, or robbery, or forgery, or the utterance of forged paper, committed within the jurisdiction of either, shall seek an asylum, or shall be found, within the territories of the other; provided that this shall only be done upon such evidence of criminality as, according to the laws of the place where the fugitive or person so charged shall be found, would justify his apprehension and commitment for [595]*595trial, if the crime or offense had there been committed; and the respective judges and other magistrates of the two governments shall have power, jurisdiction and authority upon complaint made under oath, to issue a warrant for the apprehension of the fugitive or person so charged, that he may be brought before such judges or other magistrates, respectively, to the end that the evidence of criminality may be heard and considered; and if, on such hearing, the evidence be deemed sufficient to sustain the charge, it shall be the duty of the examining judge or magistrate to certify the same to the proper executive authority, that a warrant may issue for the surrender of such fugitive.”

This provision of the treaty, and its effect, are discussed at some length by Mr. Justice Miller, in the opinion of the court in the case of the United States v. Rauscher, supra. After showing, that in' the absence of treaty, it was the recognized rule of public law that the country receiving the offender against its laws from another country had no right to proceed against him for any other offense than that for which he had been delivered up, and, that under the constitution, treaties made by the United States, become, like that instrument, and laws passed in pursuance thereof, the supreme law of the land, governing courts in appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights of persons growing out of them, the learned justice proceeds to the discussion of the rights of a person extradited under the particular treaty in question. On that subject he says.: “ It is unreasonable to suppose that any demand for rendition framed upon a general representation to the government of the asylum, (if we may use such an expression,) that the party for whom the demand was made was guilty of some violation of the laws of the country which demanded him, without specifying any particular offense with which he was charged, and even without specifying an offense mentioned in the treaty, would receive any serious attention; and yet such is the effect of the construction that the party is properly liable to trial for any other offense than that for which he was demanded, and which is described in the treaty. There would, under that view of [596]*596the subject, seem to be no need of a description of a specific offense in making the demand. But, so far from this being admissible, the treaty not only provides that the party shall be charged with one of the crimes mentioned, to wit, murder, assault with intent to commit murder, piracy, arson, robbery, forgery, or the utterance of forged paper, but that evidence shall be produced to the judge or magistrate of the country of which such demand is made, of the commission of such an offense, and that this evidence shall be such as according to the law of that country would justify the apprehension and commitment for trial of the person so charged. If the proceedings under which the party is arrested in a country where he is peaceably and quietly living, and to the protection of whose laws he is entitled, are to have no influence in limiting-the prosecution in the country where the offense is charged to have been committed, there is very little use for this particularity in charging a specific offense, requiring that offense to be one mentioned in the treaty, as well as sufficient evidence of the party’s guilt to put him upon trial for it. Nor can it be said that, in the exercise of such a delicate power under a treaty so well guarded in every particular, its provisions are obligatory alone on the state which makes the surrender of the fugitive, and that that fugitive passes into the hands of the country which charges him with the offense, free from all the positive requirements and just implications of the treaty under which the transfer of his person takes place. A moment before he is under the protection of a government which has afforded him an asylum from which he can only be taken under a very limited form of procedure, and a moment after he is found in the possession of another sovereignty by virtue of that proceeding, but divested of all the rights which he had the moment before, and of all the rights which the law governing that proceeding was intended to secure. If upon the face of this treaty it could be seen that its sole object was to secure the transfer of an individual from the jurisdiction of one sovereignty to that of another, the argument might be sound; but as this right of transfer, the right to demand it, the obligation to grant it. [597]*597the proceedings under which it takes place, all show that it is for a limited and defined purpose that the transfer is made, it is impossible to conceive of the exercise of jurisdiction in such a case for any other purpose than that mentioned in the treaty, and ascertained by the proceedings under which the party is extradited, without an implication of fraud upon the rights of the party extradited, and of bad faith to the country which permitted his extradition.”

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Ex parte McKnight, 48 Ohio St. (N.S.) 588 (Ohio 1891).

48 Ohio St. (N.S.) 588 (Ex parte McKnight) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

United States v. Rauscher
119 U.S. 407 (Supreme Court, 1886)
State ex rel. Brown v. Stewart
19 N.W. 429 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1884)