In re Lucke

• Court: United States District Courts. 5th Circuit. United States District Courts. 5th Circuit. Northern District of Texas
• Citation: 20 F. Supp. 658
• Parties: In re LUCKE.
• Decision Date: 15 September 1937

20 F. Supp. 658

In re LUCKE.

District Court, N. D. Texas, Amarillo Division.

September 15, 1937.

Frank F. Taylor, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Fort Worth, Tex., for the United States.

ATWELL, District Judge.

Early in this month the court received from the Mexican Consul General, at El Paso, Texas, an application properly certified to by officers of the United States of Mexico as the basis for the extradition of Marvin Lucke, an American citizen.

The papers charged a theft. Extradition was sought under the treaty. They were forwarded to the United States Marshal at Amarillo, by the court, with an order directing the marshal to use the application as a basis for an affidavit to be made before the United States commissioner.

Upon such affidavit a warrant was issued and Lucke was brought before the commissioner. A certificate, dated September 13, 1937, was made of such hearing, and the result thereof, to this court.

The commissioner found that the articles alleged to have been stolen were of much less value than $25 and that the articles were probably not taken from Mexico but from Laredo, in the United States, at which latter point Lucke was in charge of these particular phonograph records. It appears that the property was used for radio broadcasting and was in Lucke's possession as an employee of one Baker, against whom the United States was proceeding, under some of its statutes, for an alleged violation thereof by broadcasting from the Republic of Mexico into the United States of America. That Lucke turned the records over to the United States officers for evidence and with no intention to appropriate the same, or the value thereof, to his own use and benefit. That the records are being held by such officers for that purpose, and will be returned to Baker when the case is finished.

Section 651 of title 18, U.S.C.A., provides that "whenever there is a treaty * * * for extradition between the Government of the United States and any foreign government, any justice of the supreme court, circuit judge, district judge, or commissioner, authorized so to do by any of the courts of the United States, * * * may, upon complaint made under oath, charging any person found within the limits of any State, * * * with having committed within the jurisdiction of any such foreign government any of the crimes provided for by such treaty, * * * issue his warrant for the apprehension of the person so charged, * * * to the end that the evidence of criminality may be heard and considered. If, on such hearing, he deems the evidence sufficient to sustain the charge under the provisions of the proper treaty, * * * he shall certify the same, together with a copy of all of the testimony taken before him, to the Secretary of State, that a warrant may issue upon the requisition of the proper authorities of such foreign government, for the...