I still have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that a lot of the “Criminal Code” in the US is state-level; our Criminal Code is federal. That leads me to a question.
In the US, if someone commits a serious state-level crime and flees to another state (specific one unknown by the authorities), how do arrest warrants work? Lets say I murder someone and leave great gobs of evidence literally and figuratively; it is particularly gruesome so the police d–n well want me arrested NOW. However, having planned ahead I flee the state and leave no hint about which state I have fled to. How do arrest warrants work under those circumstances?
In Canada a Canada-wide arrest warrant would be issued for me under those circumstances. How does it work in the US?
We have a national database and basically every Law Enforcement Agency has access. This will have all the info about an alleged perp in it and will include info on where this person has ties or relatives. If a LEO runs your car plates, ID card, know alias etc, the database will alert that LEO. The computer in the police car is connected in most cases.
For really serious crimes, the FBI will assist. The RCMP has access as well and will happily arrest you as you cross the Border.
Then comes extradition.
I am sure others here know more but this is what I know off the top of my head. The system is called the National Criminal Information System or Center, I forget which.
An arrest warrant issued in any state is valid in every state. So if you commit a crime in New York, you can be arrested for it in California even if you’ve never committed a crime in California. You’ll then be transferred back to New York by United States Marshals to stand trial.
I believe the US Marshals only deal with fugitives from the federal courts. If you’re extradited from California to New York, a New York police officer must go to California to collect the prisoner.
No, we use to have US Marshals transport prisoners for us. I believe it was an administrative thing. State law enforcement generally only have police powers within their own state. It’s possible for them to work outside their state but I believe there’s some paperwork involved. US Marshals are federal so they automatically have police powers throughout the country and they can work between states as part of their normal duties.
Canadjun, a big piece of the puzzle is to understand that the states are exactly that: sovereign states each unto itself. It took me decades to appreciate that, and many Merkins still don’t really get it. The divisions between the states are not merely for administrative convenience, but they are real governmental borders – rather similar to the border between the USA and Canada, actually.
So now take your original question, and rephrase it: What if someone commits a crime in Alberta, but the authorities can’t find him, and don’t even know if he might have gone to Montana or even further? The answer is that the Canadian and American authorities are on friendly terms, and have made several agreements outlining how they cooperate on items of mutual interest, such as catching fugitives. And the same way that such agreements exist among the countries, similar agreements exist among the states.
(Please note: Regarding what I said about the states being sovereign and independent, yes, I really meant that, it being understood that the states did agree to cede some of their power to the national government, as detailed in the Constitution and elsewhere. Not much different, really, from the sovereign states of Europe who ceded some specific powers to the EU.)
Just shy of 34 years law enforcement experience in a large metro area here.
I’ve never known of any federal agency (U.S. Marshals, FBI, etc.) get involved in transporting a person wanted on a non-federal warrant. Either the state that wants them comes and gets them or they don’t. I’ve never know the feds to get involved in it. It may happen, I just haven’t been involved in a case where it has happened.
As far as coming and getting them, anyone can cross state lines and do it, but it has a lot to do with who issued the warrant and what it’s for. But sometimes what it’s for is less important than where their at.
Examples;
This carny was crossing the street where I was directing traffic and vapor-locked right in front of me and assumed room temperature. De-fib got him going and he was transported to the hospital. Like everybody I have contact with I did a Q&W on him and turns out he had a warrant for larceny (or something of that nature) in Texas. Thought he was going to have another heart attack when I told him about it and cuffed him to the hospital gurney. Believe it or not, agency from Texas showed up at the hospital 5 days later and transported him!
Another time I did an FI on a guy that was looking inside car windows in a parking lot. He has a warrant out of Iowa for attempted murder via arson. But the warrant specified they would only extradite if he was taken into custody in a county that borders the state of Iowa, which Milwaukee does not. So I ended up having to let him go. Attempted murder? WTF does a guy gotta do to get into prison in Iowa?
So, like I said. it has to do with who issues the warrant, how bad they want the guy, and what they’re wanted for. Guess you have to tear the tags off your mattress for Iowa to want you bad enough!
False, because there are not and can never be border checkpoints at state borders, among other things.
True, if you close your eyes a little bit.
This gets into the difference between legal theory and legal practice: In theory, there are fifty sovereign states, one special Federal district (of Columbia), and whatever categories you want to put Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and so on into. That sovereignty is theoretically just as real as Monaco’s, for example.
In practice, you have decades of jurisprudence that says, due to the Commerce Clause and (more recently) Congress’s enumerated taxation powers, the Federal government can regulate food, medicine, workers’ safety and pay, and healthcare itself, among other things. A state can sub-divide itself into whatever local governments it wants, as long as it doesn’t deprive anyone of their suffrage in a manner contrary to the Constitution and Federal law, but if it tries to set its minimum wage less than $7.25/hour, some Federal court would stomp that sucker flat.
In further theory and practice and, uh, large numbers of soldiers, you have the fact a state is sovereign unless it decides to test its sovereignty by leaving the Union unilaterally, at which point it ceases to be sovereign and commences to be a battleground for the five minutes it takes the US Armed Forces to pound it flat. OTOH, if Monaco got stroppy it wouldn’t take France very long to pound it flat, either.
So it’s Tinkerbell Sovereignty: Clap your hands if you believe, because it will collapse the first time the state does something that motivates the Federal government to step in.
There is a very big difference from the EU. The member states of the EU have retained their full sovereignty, unlike the states of the US.
The EU is based on international treaties, which sovereign states have agreed to. Just like any other international treaty, a sovereign state that belongs to the EU could unilaterally leave the EU, according to the terms of the Treaty of Lisbon. While a negotiated exit is preferable, under that Treaty, after two years’ notice, the departing state is no longer bound by the EU treaties and is no longer a member, regardless of the views of the other EU members.
That’s true sovereignty, unlike the case of the individual states of the Union, who have surrendered the right to leave the Union unilaterally: Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869).
Not really… the Federal government has to work within the bounds of the law, and some of the most tortured legal logic out there is what’s used to try and justify direct Federal intervention in state affairs.
I mean, Rick Perry can execute whoever the hell he wants if they broke Texas law, and there’s not a damned thing the Feds can do about it, save charge the guy with a Federal crime and shift the jurisdiction, or prove that some part of the Texas laws are in conflict with Federal laws. If that’s not the case, then the Feds are powerless.And ultimately, the states could call a constitutional convention and rewrite the Federal laws if they so chose.
The two things that make the US system interesting are that in practice the states are sovereign, and that the whole thing is predicated on the premise that the states delegated a portion of that sovereignty to the Federal government, NOT the other way around, a-la Scotland and the UK.
It’s hardly “Tinkerbell” sovereignty; it’s more a matter of definition of where the states and the Federal government are sovereign- that’s been the majority of Federal jurisprudence for the past 150 years.
Thanks! Maybe I’ll get you guys figured out one of these days! pkbites - you are hilarious! “…vapor-locked right in front of me and assumed room temperature…”?! I had to think about that one!
Prosecution, yes, if a prosecution has already been instituted. But a person who has not yet been formally charged or named as a suspect is free to move about, without it being called “to avoid prosecution”.
I’m not really disputing anything that the posters after me wrote. My main point is that cooperation can work wonders, and that in many cases, agreed-upon rules are already in effect to guide the various governments. A fugitive wanted by Chicago can be arrested in either Rome, New York or in Rome, Italy, as long as the proper agreements are in place.
Northern Piper claims that the states of the EU are fully sovereign, and also claims that they are technically allowed to unilaterally withdraw from the EU at any time, yet at the same time, Northern Piper concedes that for the first two years after giving notice, they ARE still bound by the treaties. So are they fully sovereign or not?
The answer, as I see it, depends on exactly what one means by the term “fully sovereign”. If a government voluntarily agrees to be bound by certain rules, is it really “fully sovereign”? It’s just semantics, in my opinion. They are fully sovereign for this, but not for that. The only truly totally sovereign state is the one that tries to prove its sovereignty by violating the agreements that it made in the past, and that usually ends pretty violently.
Not to my knowledge. The “pick up” radius is at the SOLE discretion of the issuing agency, although I am sure Murder Warrants are typed in as a Nationwide pickup/hold.
Some confine themselves to INTRA state only, etc., but as I stated, not for Murder.
I seem to remember in the back of my mind about the Ohio Revised Code (??) entering the state with a foreign warrant is a crime in and of itself? Or I read that in some state (s) somewhere??
Here is the PU radius for a Probation violation, rule 36 Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, Ohio. Unless different, as note close to bottom, the PU radius is nationwide.
So again, the agency/court can have PU radius neighboring Counties, state wide, nationwide, etc. We won’t see any state I imagine having a PU radius across the country for a traffic violator who did not pay the fine and was issued a bench warrant, although that is up to them.
Tortured or not, the logic is there and it works. That’s what I’m talking about.
Or a Federal court (probably the Supreme Court) could hear a case and decide that all forms of execution, or maybe just execution the way Texas does it, is Cruel and Unusual Punishment, which would stop the executions right there.
The states plural can. A state singular cannot. Two-thirds of the states have a sovereign right to re-write the Federal Constitution if they can get the Federal Legislature to go along with them, but no single state can do that. This actually supports my point more than it does yours: The collective will of a two-thirds supermajority of the states can trump the will of any single state, or any smaller collection of states.
Sovereignty delegated is sovereignty lost.
This loss of sovereignty happened over centuries, beginning with the ratification of the Constitution, accelerating with the Fourteenth Amendment and the doctrine of incorporation, and continuing with the High Court’s use of the Commerce Clause to justify a more active Federal government. At this point, so much has been delegated that states no longer effectively stand between the Federal government and the people, which was the goal of state sovereignty to begin with.
