Statchuk v. Warden

Wilner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This proceeding arises under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (I.A.D.) and presents some novel questions for our review. The basic facts are not in substantial dispute. On February 1, 1979, an indictment was returned in the Superior Court of New Jersey for Atlantic County charging appellant with two counts of breaking and entering with intent to steal and one count of grand larceny.

Appellant was eventually arraigned on that indictment and released on his own recognizance pending trial. He thereafter returned to Maryland, where he had been living and where he soon ⁶⁸² became incarcerated as the result of certain other infractions. At some point — the record is a bit confusing as to the date — the State of New Jersey filed a formal request under I.A.D. with the Maryland prison authorities for temporary custody of appellant in order to try him on the open 1979 indictment. 1 Appellant responded with a petition for writ of habeas corpus, filed in the Baltimore City Court, through which he sought to block his transfer to New Jersey. He claimed, and at the hearing held on the petition sought to prove, (1) that acting pursuant to Article III of I.A.D.

(Md. Code Ann. art. 27, § 616D), he had previously requested a prompt disposition of the New Jersey charges, that New Jersey had failed to bring him to trial thereon within 180 days, as it was obliged to do, and that, as a result, it had lost its right to proceed against him on that indictment; (2) that he was not in New Jersey when the offenses were allegedly committed; and (3) that his health was too poor to permit the transfer. The court regarded the petition and the hearing as governed by what the Supreme Court said and held in Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U.S. 433 (1981), and thus permitted appellant to raise only those defenses that would be cognizable in an action under the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act. It heard testimony from appellant as to his absence from New Jersey when the offenses were committed (and some evidence as to the current state of his health), but it refused to permit any evidence regarding his earlier attempt to invoke I.A.D. The continued viability of the New Jersey charges, said the court, was a matter for the New Jersey courts to determine. Finally, after some belated "flap” over the matter, the court determined that the formal request filed by New Jersey was valid and in compliance with the requirements of I.A.D. ⁶⁸³ At the conclusion of the hearing, the court found that appellant was in fact the person sought by New Jersey and that he had failed to meet his burden of proving his absence from that State when the offenses were committed.

It therefore entered an order denying the writ. Appellant appeals from that order, claiming that: "I. The court erred in ruling that Appellant lacked standing to challenge his return to New Jersey pursuant to Article IV of the interstate agreement on detainer’s [sic] on the ground that the power of the New Jersey courts to try him had lapsed under the terms of the agreement.

II

The court erred in refusing to consider Appellant’s proffer that the request for temporary custody had not been approved by the court having jurisdiction.

III

The court erred in refusing to consider Appellant’s evidence of poor health.” The State, in addition to defending the court’s rulings, has moved to dismiss the appeal as one not authorized by law. We think that the appeal is authorized, but we find no error. We therefore shall affirm. (1) Authorization For The Appeal The State’s argument proceeds thusly: (1) appeals to this Court may be taken only if authorized by statute; (2) this is an action by appellant to prevent his transfer to New Jersey under I.A.D.; (3) there is nothing in I.A.D. authorizing an appeal from an order denying such relief; (4) therefore, no right of appeal exists from such an order.

We find no merit to that argument. The State of New Jersey was acting pursuant to Article IV (a) of I.A.D. (see Md. Code Ann. art. 27, § 616E (a)) in seeking custody of appellant; and, although nothing in that article (or elsewhere in the statute) spells out either a ⁶⁸⁴ specific right on the part of an inmate to resist such a request in the custodial State or a procedure for asserting such a right in the courts of that State, subsection (d) of Article IV (§ 616E (d)) does provide that: "Nothing contained in this Article IV shall be construed to deprive any prisoner of any right which he may have to contest the legality of his delivery as provided in subsection (a) hereof, but such delivery may not be opposed or denied on the ground that the executive authority of the sending state has not affirmatively consented to or ordered such delivery.” (Emphasis supplied.) In Cuyler v. Adams, supra, 449 U.S. 433 , the Court considered this section of Article IV in terms of whether an inmate whose involuntary presence was sought under I.A.D. by another State had a right to a pre-transfer hearing in the custodial State. The statute is as silent on that question as it is on the question of whether an appeal will lie from an order directing the transfer.

The Court drew a careful distinction between Article III of I.A.D., which permits the inmate to invoke the Act and require his temporary transfer to another State that has lodged a detainer against him, and Article IV, which permits the accusing State to invoke the Act and secure the inmate’s presence with or without his consent. In the former case, the inmate’s request acts as a waiver of extradition, both to and from the accusing State. In the latter case, however, there is no such waiver; the interstate transfer is a nonvoluntary one from the inmate’s point of view. In that situation, the Court looked at I.A.D. in conjunction with the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act (or its counterparts in States that have not adopted the Uniform Act).

Absent I.A.D., a prisoner could be involuntarily transferred across State lines only in accordance with the procedures established in the extradition statutes. The Court read Article IV (d) of I.A.D. in that context, as preserving to a prisoner being proceeded against under ⁶⁸⁵ Article IV all the rights accorded him had his involuntary transfer been sought via extradition. The Court stated, at pp. 449-50: "In light of the purpose of the Detainer Agreement, as reflected in the structure of the Agreement, its language, and its legislative history, we conclude as a matter of federal law that prisoners transferred pursuant to the provisions of the Agreement are not required to forfeit any pre-existing rights they may have under state or federal law to challenge their transfer to the receiving State.” (Emphasis supplied.) 2 Thus, notwithstanding the silence of Article IV (d) on the matter, as inmate Adams would have been entitled to a pre-transfer hearing in the custodial State had the requesting State proceeded under the Extradition Act, he could not be denied such a hearing because the requesting State chose, alternatively, to proceed under I.A.D. Compare Wilson v. State, 44 Md.App. 318, 334-35 (1979), cert. den. 287 Md. 758 (1980), which, to the extent it reached a different conclusion, is obviously no longer valid. Cuyler cannot, as the State urges, be limited to the question of pre-transfer hearing.

The whole thrust of the Opinion is to the contrary; what is preserved to a prisoner under Article IV (d) is the full panoply of procedural rights that would be available to him under the State’s extradition laws, other, of course, than the right to have the matter initially determined by the Governor. That is clear beyond cavil. Maryland has adopted the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act; it appears as Md. Code Ann. art. 41, §§ 16, et seq. Section 25 of art. 41 permits a person arrested on a warrant ⁶⁸⁶ of rendition to contest the legality of the arrest through a petition for habeas corpus.

It then states that "[i]f the application for a writ of habeas corpus after an extradition hearing only, is denied by the trial court, the denial may be appealed to the Court of Special Appeals.” If, as a matter of Federal law, a prisoner is entitled by I.A.D. Article IV (d) to all of the "prodedural protections the sending State guarantees persons being extradited from within its borders” (see footnote 2, ante) and one of the rights accorded persons whose extradition is sought is to appeal the denial of his petition for habeas corpus, it follows that a prisoner whose custody is sought under I.A.D. Article IV has that same right of appeal. The statutory basis for the appeal is art. 41, § 25 which, through statutory construction, is necessarily read into art. 27, §