Somewhat inspired by the immigration debates, but I really don’t want to rehash those.
Suppose as a U.S. citizen I am on vacation in Niagara Falls, ON. I make the poor choice to shoplift, beat on my wife in the hotel room, or drive drunk.
I am arrested and/or cited and promise to appear at a later date. I say to hell with that and go back to the United States. Will Canada request extradition for such relatively minor crimes? Will my home state in the U.S. take action against me?
Does it matter how close I am to the border? I would assume that in border towns across our northern border, they would want some sort of enforcement of the laws lest Americans and Canadians cross over and violate the law with impunity, with the only consequence, I guess, that you could never travel over the border again.
Yes, they can. And it’s completely reasonable that your home state would take action against you. Any time you are stopped, they could arrest you and send you to Canada to face charges. Will they? Who knows, but if it’s relatively minor, you’re better off facing the judge. If it’s something stupid like shoplifting, you’ll likely get a slap on the wrist anyway. DUI is more serious and you might want to get a Canadian lawyer to help you with it.
All of this is good advice, and I’m not advocating becoming an international fugitive. I am just asking how this works between cooperating countries like the U.S. and Canada.
A combination of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, by which the police forces of each nation are authorised to conduct investigations on their home turf into offences alleged to have occurred in the other country, and the Extradition Treaty.
(Not that I’ve ever had a case involving either, but that would be my guess.)
It matters within jurisdictions, so I’d be surprised if it didn’t matter across jurisdictions.
Different states are different, etc., but in Ohio a warrant on a shoplifting charge will typically be for just one county. Maybe, if you’re caught in an adjacent county, they’ll change their minds and meet the cops that caught you halfway, but if you’re found in Cleveland with a misdemeanor warrant from Cincinnati, you’re probably going free because nobody is going to drive seven hours to deal with that.
While this does not address your question, it illustrates that things are getting tough out there. A lady jogs down the beach and unknowingly crosses the unmarked border. She was held for 2 weeks in jail:
So it seems like our countries can help each other out, or not, at our own choice? We needed a treaty for that?
But mine was more along the lines of a question about how it works practically. I’m sure that the U.S. or Canada can request extradition for jaywalking. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience of knowledge in how it really works.
I did some research and what I’m seeing is that assuming you have crossed the border with no problems, Canada can submit a warrant to the state department requesting your extradition. If you were then arrested, they would put you in federal custody and you’d be allowed to file a writ of habeas corpus to fight the extradition. Since it’s Canada and they’re on generally good terms with us and beating your wife is bad, you would likely lose. The Canadian government would then send agents to collect you and take you to Canada for justice. This is what CAN happen, completely legally. WILL this happen for a dui? Probably not. For assault? Probably depends on the severity amd how badly the Crown thinks you need to pay for your misdeeds. Anyway, that’s what i turned up and it seems plausible.
Again, (and it seems like I am saying this a lot this week, next week I will be more of a hard ass) will Canada devote its limited resources and taxpayer funds to bring me back to face what is most likely a fine for me, an American citizen, allegedly beating his American citizen wife just because it happened at the Sheraton overlooking the Falls? And knowing that if I ever try to come back, I’ll get stopped and arrested at the border?
Seems like there are a better allocation of resources than that, but I don’t know. That’s why I asked the question.
I am not a lawyer, especially not an international one. But I grew up alongside the Canadian border back when travel back and forth across the border was pretty routine.
What I heard, back when I was growing up in the seventies, was that there was no consequences for minor crimes once you crossed back over the border. So if you were an American who got something like a traffic ticket in Canada, you could just ignore it. It would never appear in your American driving record. The reverse was true for Canadians in America. The only time you had to worry about a crime was if it was serious enough that you were arrested.
At some point in the eighties, this supposedly changed. Canada and the United States entered into an agreement where they recognized each other’s traffic laws and other minor crimes. From then on, if you got a ticket in Canada and ignored it, it would be filed in your American driving record as an unpaid ticket. When you tried to renew your license or conduct some other transaction at Motor Vehicles, a flag would go up and you would have to resolve the penalties before you could move on.
