Pappas v. Gilpin, 2001-CA-001024-MR.

• Decision Date: 22 March 2002
• Docket Number: No. 2001-CA-001024-MR.,2001-CA-001024-MR.
• Citation: 78 S.W.3d 753
• Parties: G. Joseph John PAPPAS, Appellant, v. David GILPIN, Tracy Brewer, and Lee Adjustment Center/Corrections Corporation of America, Appellees.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

Page 753

78 S.W.3d 753

G. Joseph John PAPPAS, Appellant, v. David GILPIN, Tracy Brewer, and Lee Adjustment Center/Corrections Corporation of America, Appellees.

No. 2001-CA-001024-MR.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

March 22, 2002.

G. Joseph John Pappas, West Liberty, pro se.

G. Edward Henry, II, Henry Watz Gardner, Sellars & Gardner, PLLC, Lexington, KY, for appellees.

Before HUDDLESTON, KNOPF and SCHRODER, Judges.

OPINION

HUDDLESTON, Judge.

G. Joseph John Pappas is currently serving a fifteen-year sentence imposed after he was convicted of several counts of wanton endangerment, first degree perjury and tampering with physical evidence. He is also subject to a detainer issued by the State of Connecticut for an alleged parole violation.

At issue in this appeal is whether the Connecticut detainer must be dismissed following that state's failure to issue a governor's warrant for Pappas's arrest within the ninety-day period enumerated in Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 440.310, or whether the statutory time limit merely delineates the maximum amount of time a defendant may be incarcerated solely for the purpose of awaiting a governor's warrant from a state seeking extradition.

Jefferson District Court, in response to a motion by Pappas to clarify its order dismissing the original Connecticut detainer, provided the following synopsis of the case's history:

Because of an outstanding fugitive warrant¹ from a foreign state (Connecticut) law enforcement in Jefferson County, Kentucky[,] arrested George Koufos, also known as George Pappas, on October 21, 1999. The Jefferson County court system issued a case number and jacket to identify this action of arrest of [Pappas]. The fugitive warrant may or may not still be outstanding from the State of Connecticut; however, the Kentucky case, identified as 99F013582 is not outstanding and has been dismissed. No governor's warrant from the State of Connecticut was received by Jefferson County within a 90 day period; therefore, all parties agreed that the local case must be dismissed and this was done on January 18, 2000.

Upon his arrival at the Lee Adjustment Center on Kentucky charges unrelated to those in Connecticut, Pappas discovered that the State of Connecticut had lodged another detainer against him. He then filed the instant action to have that detainer dismissed, arguing that Connecticut was barred from lodging a second detainer against him following the earlier dismissal of the detainer by Jefferson District Court. When Lee Circuit Court refused to dismiss the second Connecticut detainer, Pappas appealed to this Court.

The question we must decide is whether the dismissal by Jefferson District Court of the original detainer operates as a bar to Connecticut's filing a second detainer. KRS 440.310, part of Kentucky's enactment of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act (UCEA), provides:

If the accused is not arrested under warrant of the Governor by the expiration of the time specified in the warrant or bond, the judge may discharge him or may recommit him for a further period not to exceed sixty (60) days, or may again take bail for his appearance and surrender, as provided in KRS 440.300, but within a period not to exceed sixty (60) days after the date of such new bond.

KRS 440290 provides for an initial period of detainment of thirty days, after which the sixty-day period of 440.310 may begin to run. The two statutes combine to provide a ninety-day period during which a fugitive may be held awaiting a governor's warrant from the state seeking extradition.

While we are not cited to nor have we discovered any Kentucky cases which address the issue of the impact of a dismissal of a detainer under KRS 440.310, the issue has been addressed by the courts of other states in construing their codifications of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act.²

"The ninety-day period in the [UCEA] merely limits the time an accused may be incarcerated while awaiting a governor's warrant; it does not require that a governor's warrant issue within the ninety-day period."³ When, as...