Suppose that New York state indicts Donald Trump for violations of NY state law after he leaves office. Suppose that Trump is in Florida, saying and doing Trumpian nonsense. Suppose that FL Gov Desantis and the local executives order state and local officials to NOT cooperate with the extradition orders that would force Trump to go to NY and face charges.
What happens? Can the Biden DoJ use Federal Marshalls to get and transport Trump, even though it’s a matter of NY state law, not Federal law? If so, what if the FL and local officials are ordered to resist? At what point can and would the courts step in?
Unless Trump is already in jail or on bail in FL, local authorities have no obligation to assist NY in his capture. If FL has arrested him, the governor is obligated to comply with federal laws and state agreements concerning extradition, but there are no legal sanctions that would force him to comply.
But this happens all the time – someone flees to another state, and then the other state arrests him and turns him over to the original state in which he’s charged with a crime. It was my understanding that states were obligated to do this. My question is what if FL authorities decide not to do this, even if they are legally obligated?
I’m not sure they are legally required to arrest. I believe its just a courtesy among police agencies. Extradition is a legal obligation, but has no teeth.
I suspect that is the only thing (besides a general sense of justice) that encourages compliance. But does does the governor care more about that than his own political prospects?
The Supreme Court has held that the federal District Court in the state where the alleged felon is found has the jurisdiction to issue a mandamus to the state governor, ordering the extradition of the alleged felon. The source for this federal authority is the Extradition Clause of the US Constitution (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2).
See the Supreme Court decision in Puerto Rico v Branstad:
BTW, it looks like Florida (along with Alaska and Hawaii) won’t extradite for anything less than a felony. Something to do with transportation costs I suspect, but a nice loophole if Trump is wanted on something too small.
If transportation cost is the only obstacle, hell, start a GoFundMe and it would probably raise enough money in about 15 minutes to buy trump a car. Or a plane.
[quote=“Dewey_Finn, post:5, topic:927955, full:true”]
What happens then when Florida wants someone extradicted from New York State, or any other state? What incentive is there to cooperate?
[/quote]If the person has already been arrested in one state, there is often the incentive that once the arrestee is transported, that’s the end of their financial burden – no need to house, feed, & guard him in a jail, no need for an expensive trial, and no probation or prison expense – the other state has him now, and it’s all their cost from now on.
Another possible incentive is that Florida is a welfare state – they receive way more money from the Federal government than they pay in Federal taxes. So if the Feds (like President Biden) get real annoyed at Florida about this, they can seriously impede the flow of Federal cash to Florida.
Pretty sure that if one state were to issue another a writ of mandamus to extradite someone, and the state refused, the state issuing the writ would have to take it to the Supreme Court. Who would, as I understand it based on @Northern_Piper’s citation, be essentially bound to find in favor of the issuing state. There’s not much latitude in terms of actual statutes like that as far as I know.
Plus, I suspect that failing to extradite would run afoul of the Constitution directly as part of the extradition clause.
But as noted upthread, this all assumes that the person sought is in custody. It is a disputed issue whether the second state must affirmatively take action, using its own police force and resources, to arrest the sought after individual in the first place.
The only precedent is the Fugitive Slave Clause, nearly identical to the extradition clause, and the Supreme Court permitted “Personal Liberty Laws” to stand in northern states which basically said that yes, we have to return runaway slaves, but everyone in this state is prohibited from finding them in the first place.
If we had the hypo presented here: NY wants to prosecute Trump, but Florida isn’t having it, then we have a standoff. And I’m not sure of the ultimate outcome. What if a U.S. District Court orders Trump’s arrest? Florida says, “Sure, we are working on that.” How hard can the Court order Florida to look for him? Is “we knocked on the front door of Mar-a-Lago and they said he wasn’t home” good enough?
