Interstate Rendition Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Fugitives from justice in a federal nation may flee to a sister state or a foreign nation, and a process established by the national constitution or a foreign treaty, respectively, is necessary to ensure their return to the state from which they fled. Members of the New England Confederation, established in 1643, utilized a rendition process subsequently included in the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (Article IV). Currently, the U.S. Constitution (Article IV, Section 2) and a congressional statute (18 U.S.C. §3182) govern the rendition process, and the United States has entered into extradition treaties with many foreign nations.

The governor of the state from which the fugitive fled demands that the governor of the asylum state apprehend and return the fugitive to the demanding state. Whether the offense committed by the fugitive is an offense in the asylum state is immaterial. The U.S. Supreme Court in Dennison v. Kentucky (65 U.S. 66) in 1861 ruled the asylum state governor has only a moral obligation to return a fugitive. The Court in Puerto Rico v. Branstad (489 U.S. 227) held in 1987 that the governor of the asylum state has a constitutional mandatory duty to return the fugitive. The fugitive, however, has due process of law rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and may demand a hearing before the governor and an appeal to the judiciary to secure his or her liberty.

All state legislatures have enacted the Agreement on Detainers, an interstate compact establishing a similar process for a state penal institution prisoner to be returned temporarily to another state for a trial on an untried indictment, information, or complaint.

Bibliography:

Rendition Act of 1793, 1 Stat. 302, 18 U.S.C. §3182.
Scott, James A. The Law of Interstate Rendition Erroneously Referred to as Interstate Extradition: A Treatise. Chicago: Sherman Hight, 1917.
Zimmerman, Joseph F. Interstate Relations: The Neglected Dimension of Federalism. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996.

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