Com. ex rel. Bonomo v. Haas

• Decision Date: 03 January 1968
• Citation: 236 A.2d 810,428 Pa. 167
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania ex rel. Dominick BONOMO, Appellant, v. William F. HAAS, Sheriff of Union County.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

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236 A.2d 810 428 Pa. 167 COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania ex rel. Dominick BONOMO, Appellant,
v.
William F. HAAS, Sheriff of Union County. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Jan. 3, 1968.

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James F. McClure, Jr., Lewisburg, for appellant.

A. Thomas Wilson, Dist. Atty., Union County, Lewisburg, for appellee.

Before BELL, C.J., and MUSMANNO, JONES, COHEN, EAGEN, O'BRIEN and ROBERTS, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

O'BRIEN, Justice.

This is an appeal from the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Union County directing that appellant[428 Pa. 168] be extradited to New Jersey. This order followed the denial of appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Appellant had been committed to New Jersey State Prison on January 8, 1954, following convictions and sentences for various state offenses. On March 26, 1954 and on May 12, 1954, appellant received additional sentences on other charges. He was confined in the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey, from January 12, 1954 to September 12, 1961, when he was released on parole.

In July of 1964, appellant was convicted in New Jersey on a disorderly person charge, sentenced to thirty days, and confined in the Hudson County Jail. As a result of this conviction, petitioner's parole was revoked on August 5, 1964. On August 18, 1964, at the expiration of the thirty-day sentence, appellant was surrendered by New Jersey Authorities to the Federal Government for trial on a charge of possessing counterfeit money. By appellant's own testimony, it appears that New Jersey placed a detainer on him when handing him over to federal authorities. Appellant was tried, convicted, and sentenced in the United States District Court in Newark, New Jersey in January, 1965, and was committed to the custody of the Attorney General of the United States. He was subsequently transported by federal marshals to the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was incarcerated until May 4, 1967.

A detainer being lodged against appellant at the penitentiary, upon his release he was arrested as a fugitive from justice by William F. Haas, Sheriff of Union County, Pennsylvania. The Governor of New Jersey filed a requisition with the Governor of Pennsylvania for appellant's extradition to New Jersey, and the Governor of Pennsylvania issued a Warrant of Extradition on June 6, 1967.

[428 Pa. 169] Appellant contends that the Warrant of Extradition is invalid for two reasons:

1. He is not a fugitive from justice from the State of New Jersey because he left that state involuntarily; and

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2. The State of New Jersey waived the right to extradite him by surrendering jurisdiction to the federal authorities. Although these two contentions have often been treated as one by the courts, ¹ we shall try to deal with them separately.

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2, of the United States Constitution provides as follows: '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.'

Since the above Constitutional provision was considered not to be self-executing, Congress enacted the following implementing statute: 'Whenever the executive authority of any State or Territory demands any person as a fugitive from justice, of the executive authority of any State, District or Territory to which such person has fled, and produces a copy of an indictment found or an affidavit made before a magistrate of any State or Territory, charging the person demanded with having committed treason, felony, or other crime, certified as authentic by the governor or chief magistrate of the State or Territory from whence the person so charged has fled, the executive authority of [428 Pa. 170] the State, District or Territory to which such person has fled shall cause him to be arrested and secured, and notify the executive authority making such demand, or the agent of such authority appointed to receive the fugitive, and shall cause the fugitive to be delivered to such agent when he shall appear. If no such agent appears within thirty days from the time of the arrest, the prisoner may be discharged.' June 25, 1948, c. 645, 62 Stat. 822, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3182.

Pennsylvania, as have the other states, has in turn enacted its own extradition law: Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, Act of General Assembly of July 8, 1941, P.L. 288, 19 P.S. §§ 191.1 to 191.31. Section 2 of the Pennsylvania Extradition Act provides: 'Fugitives from justice; duty of governor * * * (I)t is the duty of the governor of this State to have arrested and delivered up to the executive authority of any other state of the United States any person charged in that state with treason, felony or other crime, who has fled from justice and is found in this State.' Appellant contends that he is not a 'fugitive from justice', i.e., one who had 'fled from justice' because he had not left the demanding state voluntarily but rather in the custody of federal marshals, to serve a federal sentence at the penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Numerous courts, however, have held that the involuntariness of the removal to the asylum state does not prevent the petitioner from being subject to extradition under the fugitive from justice provision of the extradition statutes. ²

[428 Pa. 171]

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'In the course of interpretation the phrase 'fled into,' found in both the Constitution and the statute, has been assimilated into the phrase 'fugitive from justice'.' United States ex rel. Moulthrope v. Matus, 218 F.2d 466, 468 (2nd Cir. 1954). And fugitive from justice has been given a broad meaning. 'In whatever manner or for whatever reason he may have gone into the asylum state he is regarded in law as a fugitive from the justice of the demanding state.' People ex rel. McFadden v. Meyering, 358 Ill. 442, 445, 193 N.E. 475, 476 (1934). The view was elaborated by the Minnesota Supreme Court in State ex rel. Shapiro v. Wall, 187 Minn. 246, 244 N.W. 811, 812, 85 A.L.R. 114 (1932): 'In the case of Roberts v. Reilly, 116 U.S. 80, 97, 6 S.Ct. 291, 300, 29 L.Ed. 544, the court held one to be a fugitive from justice who has committed a crime within a state and 'when he is sought to be subjected to its criminal process to answer for his offense, he has left its jurisdiction, and is found within the territory of another.' Our own court in State ex rel. v. Richter, 37 Minn. 436, 438, 35 N.W. 9, 10, speaking[428 Pa. 172] through Mr. Justice Mitchell, in regard to Roberts v. Reilly, said: 'The meaning of this language is unmistakable, viz.: That the motives or purposes of the party in leaving the state where the crime was committed are entirely immaterial; that all that is necessary to constitute him a fugitive from justice is (1) that, being within a state, he there committed a crime against its laws, and (2) when required to answer its criminal process, he has left its jurisdiction, and is found in the territory of another state.

"This construction fully accords with our own views. The sole purpose of this statute, and of the constitutional provision which it was designed to carry into effect, was to secure the return of persons who had committed crime within one state, and had left it before answering the demands of justice. The important thing is not their purpose in leaving, but the fact that they had left, and hence were beyond the reach of the process of the state where the crime was committed. Whether the motive for leaving was to escape prosecution or something else, their return to answer the charges against them is equally within the spirit and purpose of the statute; And the simple fact that they are not within the state to answer its...