Williams v. Rouse

13 Mass. L. Rptr. 440
CourtMassachusetts Superior Court
DecidedAugust 9, 2001
DocketNo. 012155
StatusPublished

This text of 13 Mass. L. Rptr. 440 (Williams v. Rouse) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Rouse, 13 Mass. L. Rptr. 440 (Mass. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

Fabricant, J.

The petitioner is in the custody of the Sheriff of Suffolk County, held on a Governor’s warrant, issued upon request of the Governor of North Carolina, for extradition to North Carolina for the purpose of prosecution on an indictment for first [441]*441degree murder.1 Before the Court is the petitioner’s petition for release from custody, challenging the validity of the Governor’s warrant.

I. The Applicable Standard.

Art. IV, §2, cl. 2 of the United States Constitution provides: “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 purpose of this clause is “to enable each state to bring offenders to trial as swiftly as possible in the state where the alleged offense was committed.” Hinnant petitioner, 424 Mass. 900, 904 (1997), quoting Michigan v. Doran, 439 U.S. 282, 287 (1978).

In accord with that purpose, a state in which a fugitive is found “has an obligation to deliver, without any reference to the character of the crime charged, or to the policy or laws of the State to which the fugitive has fled.” A Juvenile, petitioner, 396 Mass. 116, 119 (1985), citing Kentucky v. Dennison, 65 U.S. (24 How.) 66, 103 (1861). An alleged fugitive may challenge the propriety of extradition by petitioning for release, but “habeas corpus is not the proper proceeding to try the question of alibi, or any question as to the guilt or innocence of the accused.” Munsey v. Clough, 196 U.S. 364, 374 (1905). “[D]efenses cannot be entertained .. . but must be referred for investigation to the trial of the case in the courts of the demanding state.” Germain, Petitioner, 258 Mass. 289, 295 (1927). Nor is the asylum state free to determine whether probable cause exists for the prosecution; rather, the asylum state is “bound to accept the demanding State’s judicial determination that probable cause exists since the proceedings of the demanding State are accorded a presumption of regularity.” A Juvenile, petitioner, 396 Mass. at 120, citing Michigan v. Doran, 439 U. S. at 290.

To effectuate the constitutional provision and its implementing federal statute, 18 U.S.C. §3182 (1970), both Massachusetts and North Carolina have adopted the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act (“UCEA”), codified in Massachusetts as G.L.c. 276, §§11-20R. Under that statute, extradition is a “summary procedure,” with “clear limits on the scope of judicial review.” Hinnant, petitioner, 424 Mass. at 905. “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.” Id., quoting Michigan v. Doran, 439 U.S. at 289.

A warrant issued under the UCEA “is prima facie evidence, ‘at least, that all necessary legal prerequisites have been complied with, and, if the previous proceedings appear to be regular, is conclusive evidence of the right to remove the prisoner to the state from which he fled.’ ” Baker, petitioner, 310 Mass. 724, 728 (1942) (citations omitted). The governor’s issuance of the warrant is in itself “sufficient to justify the removal, until the presumption in favor of the legality and regularity of the warrant is overthrown by contrary proof in a legal proceeding to review the action of the governor.” Munsey v. Clough, 196 U.S. at 372. “A petitioner for a writ of habeas corpus who is held as a fugitive from justice has the burden of making it clearly and satisfactorily to appear that he is not a fugitive from justice within the meaning of the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Id. at 730.

However,"[t]he burden of proving that the petitioner!] [is] the person!] charged and to be surrendered is on the respondent." A Juvenile, petitioner, 396 Mass. at 121, citing Baker, petitioner, 310 Mass. at 731. Where the papers in themselves reveal identity of names, “the inference which may be drawn from identity of names combined with slight additional evidence is sufficient to establish identity.” A Juvenile, at 121. Where, as here, the names differ, no such inference arises, and the respondent must establish identity by other means. See Moore, petitioner, 2 Mass.App.Ct. 399, 403 (1974), citing Baker, supra at 731.

The respondent may meet his burden of proving identity in a variety of ways, and in doing so is not limited to evidence of the sort that would be admissible in a criminal trial. See, e.g., A Juvenile, petitioner, 396 Mass. at 122 (“photographs of the petitioners authenticated by affidavits of witnesses to the crime with which the petitioners are charged”); Carvalho, petitioner, 10 Mass.App.Ct. 824, 825 (1980) (testimony of arresting officers to statements of petitioner upon arrest that were exculpatory as to crime charged, but inculpatory as to identity); Hamel, petitioner, 8 Mass.App.Ct. 877, 877 (1979) (photographs and statements to arresting officer); see also Maldonado, petitioner, 364 Mass. 359, 362 (1973) (comparing extradition to probable cause hearing for procedural purposes); Ger-main, petitioner, 258 Mass, at 295 (in reviewing executive decision to issue warrant, court “does not try the whole question anew according to strict rules of evidence and all other procedural limitations”).

2. The Proceedings, Evidence, and Findings in this Case.

In this case, the papers submitted consist of (1) the warrant issued by the Governor of Massachusetts on March 28, 2001, for the arrest and return of “Torrie McKinley Davis, aka Torri”; (2) the-demand of the Governor of North Carolina dated January 23, 2001, for the arrest of Torrie McKinley Davis; and (3) the application of the District Attorney for the Eighteenth District of North Carolina, dated January 17, 2001, for requisition of Torrie McKinley Davis. The District Attorney’s application recites that the subject was [442]*442indicted for first degree murder by the grand jury for Guilford County, North Carolina, on January 16, 2001; that the alleged crime was committed in that county; and that “said subject was personally and physically present in Greensboro, Guilford County, North Carolina, at the time of the commission of the alleged crime, and thereafter the subject fled the State of North Carolina to avoid arrest and prosecution.”

These papers on their face meet the formal requirements of the statute. In the absence of contrary evidence, the papers establish, sufficiently for purposes of this proceeding, that Torrie McKinley Davis stands charged with the crime of murder in North Carolina, and is a fugitive from justice in that state. The only question remaining is whether the petitioner before this Court is Torrie McKinley Davis, the person named in the extradition papers.

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Related

Commonwealth of Ky. v. DENNISON, GOVERNOR, &C.
65 U.S. 66 (Supreme Court, 1861)
Munsey v. Clough
196 U.S. 364 (Supreme Court, 1905)
Michigan v. Doran
439 U.S. 282 (Supreme Court, 1978)
Moore
313 N.E.2d 893 (Massachusetts Appeals Court, 1974)
Commonwealth v. Colon-Cruz
470 N.E.2d 116 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1984)
Maldonado
304 N.E.2d 419 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1973)
Rice v. Governor
93 N.E. 821 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1911)
Germain
155 N.E. 12 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1927)
Baker
39 N.E.2d 762 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1942)
Juvenile
484 N.E.2d 995 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1985)
Hinnant
678 N.E.2d 1314 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1997)
Hamel
391 N.E.2d 962 (Massachusetts Appeals Court, 1979)
Carvalho
406 N.E.2d 727 (Massachusetts Appeals Court, 1980)

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Bluebook (online)
13 Mass. L. Rptr. 440, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-rouse-masssuperct-2001.