Olson v. Thurston
| Decision Date | 02 November 1978 |
| Citation | 393 A.2d 1320 |
| Parties | Thomas Allen OLSON v. Carlton V. THURSTON, and State of Maine. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Paine & Lynch by Martha J. Harris, Bangor (orally), for plaintiff.
William R. Stokes (orally), Charles K. Leadbetter, Asst. Attys. Gen., Augusta, for defendants.
Before McKUSICK, C. J., and WERNICK, ARCHIBALD, DELAHANTY and GODFREY, JJ.
On appeal from the Superior Court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Thomas Allen Olson seeks to prevent his extradition to Pennsylvania, where he stands charged with burglary, theft, and receiving stolen property. We deny the appeal.
Acting upon reasonable information that Olson was a fugitive from justice, police officers in Maine on November 18, 1977, arrested him, without a warrant. Following the procedure set forth in the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, 15 M.R.S.A. §§ 201-229, 1 Olson was arraigned three days later in the Maine District Court. 2 The District Court, however, failed to comply with section 215 of the Act requiring the judge to ascertain whether Olson was the person charged with the Pennsylvania crime. Nor did the court set a specific limit on the period for which Olson could be detained pending the issuance of an interstate rendition warrant by Governor Longley of Maine. 3 Unable to make bail, Olson remained incarcerated until December 21, 1977, when bail was reduced and Olson released.
On December 9, 1977, Governor Shapp of Pennsylvania forwarded a request to Governor Longley, demanding that Olson be extradited from Maine to Pennsylvania. Requisite documentation in support of the demand, however, was not delivered to the Governor of Maine until about a month later. The District Court granted continuances on November 30, 1977, December 14, 1977, December 21, 1977, and January 11, 1978, while awaiting the Governor's issuance of the rendition warrant. On January 18, 1978, Governor Longley issued a rendition warrant for Olson's arrest and extradition, which was executed on January 23, 1978. Four days later Olson petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court pursuant to 15 M.R.S.A. § 210. 4 The Superior Court denied his petition, and Olson brought a timely appeal to this court.
Before this court on appeal, as before the Superior Court, Olson asserts three reasons why he believes he should not be extradited to Pennsylvania. First, he contends that the documentation accompanying Pennsylvania's extradition request failed to satisfy the statutory requirements of 15 M.R.S.A. § 203. Second, he alleges that before he can be extradited on Pennsylvania's request, Maine courts are constitutionally obligated to make their own independent determination that probable cause exists to believe that Olson has committed a crime, without relying on a probable cause determination made by a Pennsylvania justice. Finally, he argues that the conceded illegality of his earlier detention before the issuance of Governor Longley's rendition warrant taints the entire extradition procedure, and that consequently his extradition to Pennsylvania would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Superior Court correctly rejected each of petitioner's arguments, and consequently we deny his appeal.
On August 5, 1977, Detective George Boone of the Lower Merion Police Department personally appeared before Justice Robert P. Johnson of Montgomery County District Court in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and swore to a complaint charging Olson with the offenses of theft, burglary, and receiving stolen property. 5 Justice Johnson thereupon issued a warrant for Olson's arrest, certifying that "there is probable cause for the issuance of process," and that Detective Boone had "personally appeared" before him and that Boone under oath stated "that the facts set forth (in the complaint were) true and correct to the best of (his) knowledge, information and belief." The executed complaint and the arrest warrant issued by Justice Johnson were attached to Governor Shapp's extradition request and forwarded to the Governor of Maine. Olson contends that this documentation failed to satisfy the statutory requirements of 15 M.R.S.A. § 203. That section provided in part:
Olson maintains that the executed complaint is not the equivalent of "an affidavit made before a magistrate" within the meaning of the statute. 6
This portion of the Maine version of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act parallels the federal statute 7 which implements art. IV, § 2, clause 2 of the United States Constitution. 8 Sawyer v. State, Me., 382 A.2d 1039, 1041-42 (1978). On a petition for habeas corpus, it is incumbent upon the court to review the warrants of arrest and of requisition to determine whether they comply with the statutes and justify the rendition warrant. Poulin v. Bonenfant, Me., 251 A.2d 436, 438 (1969). Though the issue of whether a "complaint" constitutes an "affidavit" under the statute has not previously been addressed by this court, we are particularly alert to the fact that the Maine legislature has mandated that the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act Sawyer v. State, supra at 1041.
Bearing in mind, then, the considerable precedential value of decisions from other jurisdictions, we note that courts universally accept a criminal complaint, sworn to before a judge, as an "affidavit made before a magistrate" within the meaning of both the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act and the analogous federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3182. 9 Interestingly enough, Maine was the demanding state in one of the leading cases so holding decided in Massachusetts, there the asylum state. Maine's demand for extradition was accompanied by a sworn complaint. Noting that "an affidavit is a statement in writing sworn before an officer authorized to administer an oath," the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court concluded: "The contention of the petitioners that a complaint cannot be an affidavit is unsound." In re Murphy, 321 Mass. 206, 72 N.E.2d 413, 417-18 (1947). Similarly, the Utah Supreme Court has held that were a complaint "states all of the essential facts constituting the offense, and is sworn to in positive terms," it "takes the place and answers the purposes of the affidavit referred to in the federal statute and is sufficient both in form and in substance." Bell v. Corless, 57 Utah 604, 196 P. 568, 571 (1921).
As the language of the Uniform Act makes clear, "(t)he indictment, information or affidavit made before the magistrate must substantially charge the person demanded with having committed a crime under the law of that State." As long as the complainant's statements before the magistrate are given under oath, it is of no relevance that the criminal accusation is described as a "complaint" rather than an "affidavit." The test remains whether the commission of a crime has been asserted by a person under oath. Detective Boone's complaint, sworn to before a justice of the Pennsylvania District Court, unambiguously charges Olson with three criminal offenses 10 and thus satisfied the statutory requirements of 15 M.R.S.A. § 203.
"The Fourth Amendment requires a timely judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to detention." Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 126, 95 S.Ct. 854, 869, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975). This principle applies with equal force to the "significant pretrial restraint of liberty" involved in interstate extradition. Ierardi v. Gunter, 528 F.2d 929, 930 (1st Cir. 1976).
Olson is entitled to a judicial determination of probable cause prior to his extradition. But in issuing the arrest warrant, Pennsylvania District Court Justice Johnson expressly certified his determination of probable cause, and the courts of Maine are precluded from reviewing that judicial determination.
As one federal court has observed: "The question before us is not whether the probable cause defense may be raised to vitiate an arrest, but when (and where) and before which tribunal." Garrison v. Smith, 413 F.Supp. 747, 753 (N.D.Miss.1976). Olson argues that this court should follow the rule laid down in Kirkland v. Preston, 128 U.S.App.D.C. 148, 154, 385 F.2d 670 (1967). The Kirkland court differentiated between an extradition demand accompanied by a grand jury indictment and a demand premised on an affidavit and the arrest warrant issued thereon. The court held that in the latter situation "Fourth Amendment considerations require that before a person can be extradited . . . the authorities in the asylum state must be satisfied that the affidavit shows probable cause." Id. 128 U.S.App.D.C. at 154, 385 F.2d at 676.
A sounder approach in our view, however, has more recently been taken by the United States Court of Appeals...
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