Pakulski v. Hickey
| Decision Date | 13 April 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-3143,83-3143 |
| Citation | 731 F.2d 382 |
| Parties | Mitchell J. PAKULSKI, et al., Petitioners-Appellants, v. Donald T. HICKEY, Sheriff of Lucas County, Ohio, et al., Respondents-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Henry B. Herschel, Paul Davis (argued), Christopher C. Loyd, James C. Sass, Toledo, Ohio, for petitioners-appellants.
James D. Bates, Asst. Lucas County Prosecutor (argued), Toledo, Ohio, J. Michael Carpenter, Asst. Atty. Gen. of N.C. Dept. of Justice (argued), Jack L. Cozort, Raleigh, N.C., for respondents-appellees.
Before KEITH and MERRITT, Circuit Judges, and PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge.
The question in this case is whether or not the three appellants are "fugitives" from North Carolina and subject to extradition. Extradition of appellants was ordered by Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes on May 18, 1979 upon the request of North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt.
The extradition has been delayed for a protracted period of time by a writ of habeas corpus improvidently granted by the Court of Common Pleas of Lucas County, Ohio, on October 2, 1979. The decision of the Common Pleas Court was reversed by the Supreme Court of Ohio in a well-reasoned opinion, In re Rowe, 67 Ohio St.2d 115, 423 N.E.2d 167 (1981). The appellants also filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division.
The appellants are Mitchell Pakulski, Elliot Rowe and Donna Rowe, who appeal from the judgment of the district court dismissing their petitions for a writ of habeas corpus. We affirm. Following oral argument on March 8, 1984, this Court, from the bench on its own motion, terminated the order staying the extradition pending this appeal, entered by the district court on February 24, 1983.
The Supreme Court of Ohio summarized the facts as follows:
On September 17, 1978, the body of Willard Setzer, who had been shot, was discovered in Waynesville, Haywood County, North Carolina. On November 27, 1978, Elliot Rowe III and Mitchell John Pakulski, appellees herein, were charged in the General Court of Justice, Superior Court Division of Haywood County, with the offense of murder in the first degree, committed on or about September 17, 1978, which is a capital offense proscribed by General Statutes Section 14-17 of North Carolina. Arrest warrants were issued by the magistrate of the District Court Division of the court. On December 6, 1978, Donna Rowe, also an appellee herein, was similarly charged and an arrest warrant issued.
Appellees were thereafter arrested in Lucas County, Ohio, upon fugitive warrants issued by the Court of Common Pleas of Lucas County pursuant to R.C. 2963.11. On December 6, 1978, James B. Hunt, Jr., Governor of the state of North Carolina, formally requested of James A. Rhodes, Governor of the state of Ohio, the arrest and extradition of Elliot Rowe and Mitchell John Pakulski as fugitives from justice, followed, on December 13, 1978, with a similar request for the extradition of Donna Rowe.
On May 18, 1979, Governor Rhodes granted extradition by the issuance of an arrest warrant for appellees, which warrants were executed by the Sheriff of Lucas County. Thereafter, each appellee filed a complaint for a writ of habeas corpus, pursuant to R.C. 2963.09, to contest the legality of their arrest. The respondent, the Sheriff of Lucas County filed a "return" to the complaint averring, inter alia, that appellees were being held pursuant to a warrant of arrest issued by the Governor of the state of Ohio.
The complaints were joined for hearing and evidence presented. Essentially, by their complaint averments and evidence appellees asserted they were not fugitives from justice within the meaning of that term as used in the federal Constitution and federal and state extradition statutes, for the reason they were not in the demanding state of North Carolina on or about the date the offense charged was committed. By oral pronouncement on September 7, 1979, followed on October 2, 1979, by judgment entry, the court granted the writ of habeas corpus and discharged appellees from custody. In its judgment entry, the court inter alia, found beyond a reasonable doubt that appellees "were not in the state of North Carolina on the date of the alleged offense."
In addition to the true bills of indictment for first degree murder against the three appellants previously returned by the Haywood County, North Carolina grand jury, the grand jury also returned an indictment on November 6, 1979 charging Pakulski with forgery and uttering certain checks in August 1978 prior to the Setzer murder. On November 5, 1980 Ohio's Governor Rhodes, at the request of North Carolina's Governor Hunt, granted extradition of Pakulski on these charges.
Pakulski filed a second petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division. This petition is discussed in Part VII of this opinion. The District Court granted a stay order on November 20, 1980, staying all proceedings in the Common Pleas Court of Lucas County regarding the extradition of Pakulski on the charge of forging and uttering. The State of Ohio filed a timely motion to dismiss the petition for habeas corpus and dissolve the stay order. The District Court granted the motion to dismiss the petition and dissolve the stay order in a memorandum opinion and order dated February 24, 1983.
The proceeding involving the charges against Pakulski for forging and uttering was consolidated by the District Court with the original habeas corpus proceeding involving the extradition of all three appellants on the charge of murder. The present appeal seeks reversal of the judgments of the District Court in dismissing both petitions for writs of habeas corpus.
On December 3, 1979 Pakulski was charged by a United States Grand Jury for the Western District of North Carolina with the interstate transportation of the stolen motor vehicle owned by the murder victim, Willard Setzer, and with the theft of checks stolen from the United States mail.
The United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina agreed, pursuant to Rule 20, Fed.R.Cr.P., to a transfer of these federal charges. Pakulski entered an Alford plea of guilty on March 28, 1980 before District Judge Nicholas J. Walinski, who placed him on probation for a period of three years.
Interstate extradition finds its source in the Constitution of the United States, and long has enabled a State to bring alleged offenders to trial in the jurisdiction where a crime took place.
Clause 2 of Section 2, Article IV of the Constitution of the United States provides:
Section 2, Clause 2. Extradition
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 Supreme Court has held that the design of this Constitutional provision "was, and is, to eliminate for this purpose the boundaries of the States, so that each may reach out and bring to speedy trial offenders against its laws from any part of the land." Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police, 245 U.S. 128, 133, 38 S.Ct. 41, 43, 62 L.Ed. 193 (1917).
Congress first implemented this constitutional provision in 1793. 1 Stat. 302. This principle is codified at 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3182, which provides as follows:
Sec. 3182. Fugitives from State or Territory to State, District or Territory
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 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.
In Michigan v. Doran, 439 U.S. 282, 287, 288-89, 99 S.Ct. 530, 534, 535, 58 L.Ed.2d 521, the Supreme Court stated:
The Extradition Clause was intended to enable each state to bring offenders to trial as swiftly as possible in the state where the alleged offense was committed. Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police, 245 U.S. 128, 132-133 [38 S.Ct. 41, 42-43, 62 L.Ed. 193] (1917); Appleyard v. Massachusetts, 203 U.S. 222, 227 [27 S.Ct. 122, 123-24, 51 L.Ed. 161] (1906). The purpose of the Clause was to preclude any state from becoming a sanctuary for fugitives from justice of another state and thus "balkanize" the administration of criminal justice among the several states. It articulated, in mandatory language, the concepts of comity and full faith and credit, found in the immediately preceding clause of Art. IV. The Extradition Clause, like the Commerce Clause, served important national objectives of a newly developing country striving to foster national unity. Compare Biddinger, supra, with McLeod v. Dilworth Co., 322 U.S. 327, 330 [64 S.Ct. 1023, 1025-26, 88 L.Ed. 1304] (1944). In the administration of justice, no less than in trade and commerce, national unity was thought to be served by de-emphasizing state lines for certain purposes, without impinging on essential state...
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1997 -NMSC- 55, Reed v. State ex rel. Ortiz
...as Reed did in this case--of witnesses who can establish the defendant's whereabouts at the time of the crime. Pakulski v. Hickey, 731 F.2d 382, 389 (6th Cir.1984) (discussing a hearing that included "the testimony of thirty or more witnesses and ... a number of affidavits"). This line of c......
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State v. Pakulski
...murder in the first degree on 17 September 1978, extradition litigation in Ohio delayed trial until May of 1984. See Pakulski v. Hickey, 731 F.2d 382 (6th Cir.1984); In re Rowe, 67 Ohio St.2d 115, 423 N.E.2d 167 (1981). In the meantime, a Haywood County Grand Jury had returned additional in......