State ex rel. Coryell v. Gooden

457 S.E.2d 138, 193 W. Va. 461, 1995 W. Va. LEXIS 63
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 27, 1995
DocketNo. 22355
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 457 S.E.2d 138 (State ex rel. Coryell v. Gooden) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Coryell v. Gooden, 457 S.E.2d 138, 193 W. Va. 461, 1995 W. Va. LEXIS 63 (W. Va. 1995).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

This action is before this Court upon the appeal of Linda Coryell, the appellant and petitioner below, from a final order of the Circuit Court of Berkeley County denying her petition for a writ of habeas corpus. [464]*464Mrs. Coryell was seeking habeas corpus relief from her arrest and custody pursuant to a rendition warrant issued by the Governor of West Virginia in response to a request from the Governor of Pennsylvania for her extradition to that state for the crime of interference with custody of children. This Court has before it the petition for appeal, all matters of record and the briefs and argument of counsel. For the- reasons stated below, the order of the circuit court is affirmed.

I

Pursuant to an agreement dated July 26, 1982, William and Linda Coryell1 agreed that Mrs. Coryell would be given custody of their two children.2 The agreement, approved by the Court of Common Pleas of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, granted Mr. Coryell visitation privileges including “the right to have said children with him at his residence from Friday night, at 7 P.M. to the following Sunday at 7 P.M.” arid one week during the summer, as well as “the right to visit the children at the residence of [Mrs. Coryell] on all holidays.” On June 6, 1984, Mrs. Coryell’s parents, Raymond and Doris Pringle, were granted custody of the children, by order of the Juvenile Court, Knox County, Tennessee. The record before us reveals little of the circumstances surrounding this change in custody.3

On November 24, 1987, a bench warrant was issued against Mrs. Coryell by the Court of Common Pleas of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, for failure to appear before the court pursuant to a petition for contempt filed by Mr. Coryell. Mr. Coryell alleged that Mrs. Coryell failed to comply with the aforementioned child custody and visitation agreement.

On October 13, 1988, Mr. Coryell filed a criminal complaint against Mrs. Coryell, in Pennsylvania, for violation of 18 Pa.Cons. StatAnn. § 2904 (1983), Interference with Custody of Children,4 a felony in the third [465]*465degree. The criminal complaint states that on or about August 20, 1982, Mr. Coryell travelled to the Sunrise Lake Campgrounds in an attempt to pick up his children and to exercise his court-approved visitation rights. Mrs. Coryell had apparently taken up temporary residence at the campground. When Mr. Coryell arrived at the campground, he was, unwittingly, detained on the road by Mrs. Coryell’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Pringle, enabling Mrs. Coryell and her friend, Larry Meek, to drive away with the children. Because Mr. Coryell had neither seen nor heard from his children since that day in 1982, the criminal complaint alleged the date of the offense to be “1982 to present time.”

On April 16,1992, Mrs. Coryell was arrested in West Virginia on a fugitive warrant. She appeared before a Berkeley County magistrate and was subsequently incarcerated in the Eastern Regional Jail in lieu of $20,000 bond. Bond was later reduced to $5,000, which Mrs. Coryell paid, and she was released from jail.

On July 28, 1992, a Requisition of the Governor of Pennsylvania for the return of Mrs. Coryell, a fugitive charged with the crime of interfering with custody of children, was sent to the Honorable Gaston Caperton, Governor of the State of West Virginia, demanding that she be delivered to Detective Debra Milard, an appellee herein, for extradition to Pennsylvania. Accordingly, on July 29, 1992, Governor Caperton issued a Warrant of Rendition directing appellee Preston B. Gooden, Sheriff of Berkeley County, to deliver Mrs. Coryell to Detective Milard for extradition.

Pursuant to an agreement between Pamela Games-Neely, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney of Berkeley County, and Steven Askin, Mrs. Coryell’s attorney, Mrs. Coryell voluntarily appeared in Berkeley County Circuit Court, on August 27, 1992, where she was arraigned upon the charge that she was a fugitive from justice standing charged, in Pennsylvania, with the crime of interference with custody of children. Mrs. Coryell was subsequently served with a Governor’s Warrant from Governor Caperton demanding that she be returned to Pennsylvania. Not wishing to waive extradition, Mrs. Coryell requested leave to file a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to W.Va.Code, 5-l-9(a) [1937]. The circuit court granted Mrs. Coryell’s motion.

On September 30, 1992, Mrs. Coryell filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Berkeley County Circuit Court. Following the hearing on Mrs. Coryell’s petition, the circuit court ordered that she be extradited to Pennsylvania. It is from that order that Mrs. Coryell appeals.

II

Article IV, section 2 of the United States Constitution provides the basis for the extradition of fugitives between the states:5

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony or other Crime who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

The United States Supreme Court has set forth limitations on the scope of inquiry which may be pursued by a circuit court in an extradition proceeding.6 In Michigan v. [466]*466Doran, 439 U.S. 282, 289, 99 S.Ct. 580, 535, 58 L.Ed.2d 521, 527 (1978), the Court stated:

Once the governor has granted extradition, a court considering release on habeas corpus can do no more than decide (a) whether the extradition documents on their face are in order; (b) whether the petitioner has been charged with a crime in the demanding state; (c) whether the petitioner is the person named in the request for extradition; and (d) whether the petitioner is a fugitive. These are historic facts readily verifiable.7

(footnote added). See State ex rel Jones v. Warmuth, 165 W.Va. 825, 829, 272 S.E.2d 446, 448 (1980); State ex rel. Gonzales v. Wilt, 163 W.Va. 270, 273-74, 256 S.E.2d 15, 17 (1979). See also Cronauer v. State, 174 W.Va. 91, 94, 322 S.E.2d 862, 865 (1984).

Similarly, this Court has previously enunciated the limited role of the asylum state in extradition matters. These limitations are correlative to those pronounced in Doran. As we stated in syllabus point 1 of Wilt, supra:

‘In habeas corpus proceedings instituted to determine the validity of custody where petitioners are being held in connection with extradition proceedings, the asylum state is limited to considering whether the extradition papers are in proper form; whether there is a criminal charge pending in the demanding state; whether the petitioner was present in the demanding state at the time the criminal offense was committed; and whether the petitioner is the person named in the extradition papers.’ Point 2, Syllabus, State ex rel. Mitchell v. Allen, 155 W.Va. 530[,

Related

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West Virginia Supreme Court, 2021
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637 S.E.2d 598 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 2006)

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Bluebook (online)
457 S.E.2d 138, 193 W. Va. 461, 1995 W. Va. LEXIS 63, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-coryell-v-gooden-wva-1995.