Ex parte Bledsoe

• Decision Date: 07 February 1951
• Docket Number: No. A-11537,A-11537
• Citation: 227 P.2d 680,93 Okla.Crim. 302
• Parties: Ex parte BLEDSOE.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

Page 680

227 P.2d 680

93 Okla.Crim. 302

Ex parte BLEDSOE.

No. A-11537.

Criminal Court of Appeals of Oklahoma.

Feb. 7, 1951.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. An act of Congress, if upon a subject concerning which it is authorized by Constitution to legislate, is exclusive as to matters for which it expressly or by necessary implication provides, but if it does not occupy the whole field, it does not preclude states from enacting legislation to regulate situations not covered by the act.

2. State legislation in aid of the federal Constitution is valid.

3. State statutes are not necessarily invalid because they cover a field in which the Constitution empowers Congress to legislate.

4. A state law which stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress in reference to matters on which it is empowered by the Constitution to legislate must yield to superior force of the latter.

5. The United States Constitution and the Federal Extradition Statute do not purport to cover entire field of extradition and mentions only those who flee from state in which crime was committed and who are fugitives from justice, whereas Uniform Criminal Extradition Act provides for extradition of persons of that class and also those who commit an act in one state intentionally resulting in crime in another state, and this latter provision since it refers to a subject different and distinct from the other is not in conflict and is enforceable. 22 O.S.1949 Supp. § 1141.1 etc.; U.S.Const. art. 4, sec. 2, cl. 2; 18 U.S.C.A. § 3182.

6. Provision in Uniform Criminal Extradition Act authorizing extradition though accused was not in demanding state at time of commission of crime and has not fled therefrom is not unconstitutional on ground of conflict with federal constitutional and statutory provisions relating to extradition. 22 O.S.1949 Supp. § 1141.6; U.S.C.A.Const. art. 4, § 2, cl. 2; 18 U.S.C.A. § 3182.

7. Actual presence of defendant within state at time of commission of crime with which he is charged is not prerequisite to his conviction.

8. Verified complaint alleging that defendant, though not resident in Kansas, did unlawfully while in the state of Oklahoma omit to provide for his minor children who were in Kansas, alleged an offense under Kansas law and furnished a basis for extradition to Kansas under Uniform Criminal Extradition Act. 22 O.S.Supp.1949, § 1141.6.

Lybrand & Morgan and R. Gordon Lowe and Durward F. Mathis, all of Oklahoma City, for petitioner.

Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen., Sam H. Lattimore, Asst. Atty. Gen., Eugene Hassman, Asst. County Atty., for respondent.

JONES, Judge.

This is an original action in habeas corpus instituted by the petitioner, William A. Bledsoe, wherein he alleges that he is illegally restrained at Oklahoma City by the sheriff of Oklahoma County.

The verified petition alleges that petitioner is charged with the crime of failure to support and maintain his minor children in Harper County within the state of Kansas, but that said petitioner has never been in the state of Kansas and has never committed a crime within the state of Kansas and should not be returned to the state of Kansas for trial; that he has been arrested on a warrant issued by the Governor of Oklahoma honoring a demand for requisition by the Governor of Kansas.

At a hearing before this court it was established that the petitioner was duly charged with the commission of a crime in Harper County, Kansas to wit: The crime of neglecting and refusing without lawful excuse to provide for the support and maintenance of his minor children. The regularity and sufficiency of the extradition papers upon which the Governor of the State of Oklahoma issued his warrant for the arrest and return of petitioner to the State of Kansas is not questioned. It was agreed that petitioner has never been in the State of Kansas but that he and his wife had divorced and that six years ago she had moved to the state of Kansas with their three minor children.

The sole contention of petitioner is that he cannot be lawfully extradited to the state of Kansas for the reason that he has never been within the state of Kansas and is not a fugitive from justice as defined by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Petitioner maintains that the only authority for the extradition from one state to another of a person charged with a crime is clause 2 of section 2, Article IV of the Constitution of the United States which reads 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.' He further contends that the U. S. Code implementing the constitutional provision, furnishes the only statutory authority for extradition. 18 U.S.C.A. § 3182. That section provides that whenever the executive authority of any state demands any person, as a fugitive from justice, of the executive authority of any state to which such person has fled, and produces a copy of an indictment found or an affidavit made before a magistrate of any state, charging the person demanded with having committed a crime, certified as authentic by the governor of the state from whence the person so charged has fled, it shall be the duty of the executive authority of the state to which such person has fled to cause him to be arrested and to cause the fugitive to be delivered to the agent of the demanding state.

The petitioner was not in the State of Kansas on the date the crime was alleged to have been committed. The basis upon which the Governor of Oklahoma honored the demand for extradition by the Governor of Kansas was pursuant to § 6 of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, § 1141.6, Tit. 22 O.S.A., adopted in Oklahoma in 1949, which provides: 'The Governor of this State may also surrender, on demand of the Executive Authority of any other state, any person in this State charged in such other state in the manner provided in Section 3 with committing an Act in this State, or in a third state, intentionally resulting in a crime in the state whose Executive Authority is making the demand, and the provisions of this Act not otherwise inconsistent, shall apply to such cases, even though the accused was not in that state at the time of the commission of the crime, and has not fled therefrom. Laws 1949, p. 208, § 6.'

The Uniform Criminal Extradition Act has been adopted in nearly every state of the union including both Kansas and Oklahoma. This provision has been attacked as unconstitutional in many cases and the uniform holding has been that this section of the statute does not violate any provisions of the United States Constitution or Federal legislation. Ex parte Morgan, Cal.App., 194 P.2d 800; Cassis v. Fair, 126 W.Va. 557, 29 S.E.2d 245, 248, 151 A.L.R. 233; Ennist v. Baden, 158 Fla. 141, 28 So.2d 160, 162; English v. Matowitz, 148 Ohio St. 39, 72 N.E.2d 898, 900; Ex parte Campbell, 147 Neb. 820, 25 N.W.2d 419, 423; Culbertson v. Sweeney, 70 Ohio App. 344, 44 N.E.2d 807, 810; Osborn v. Harris, Utah, 203 P.2d 917; In re Harris, 309 Mass. 180, 34 N.E.2d 504, 134 A.L.R. 969. See also 22 Am.Jur. Extradition, Sec. 9; 135 A.L.R. 985; 151 A.L.R. 239.

In Ex parte Morgan, D.C., 78 F.Supp. 756, 760, the United States District Court for the southern district of California discussed at length the provision of the statute here involved and its alleged constitutionality. It was therein stated:

'State legislation which merely supplements a field covered by federal statute does not involve any constitutional infirmity, when, as is the case here, it merely covers a situation which, while not specifically covered by federal legislation, is within the spirit of the constitutional provision pursuant to which it was enacted, as interpreted by our highest courts.

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"The Constitutional provision and the procedural statute were intended to provide a summary executive proceedings, by the use of which the closely associated states of the union could promptly aid one another in bringing to trial persons accused of crime in one state, but found in another beyond the reach of the state where the crime was committed. To this end, the courts have given the Constitution and statute a liberal construction in order to effectuate and expedite the administration of justice in the several states. Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police, 245 U.S. 128, 38 S.Ct. 41, 62 L.Ed. 193; Appleyard v. Massachusetts, 203 U.S. 222, 27 S.Ct. 122, 51 L.Ed. 161, 7 Ann.Cas. 1073; Lascelles v. Georgia, 148 U.S. 537, 13 S.Ct. 687, 37 L.Ed. 549; Roberts v. Reilly, 116 U.S. 80, 94, 6 S.Ct. 291, 29 L.Ed. 544; Ex parte Reggel, 114 U.S. 642, 650, 5 S.Ct. 1148, 29 L.Ed. 250; Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66, 104, 16 L.Ed. 717; Ex parte Anthony, 198 Wash. 106, 87 P.2d 302.

"The only prerequisites to extradition from one state to another are, that the person sought to be extradited is substantially charged with a crime against the laws of the demanding state,...