Fugitives From Justice
DUTY TO SURRENDER
Although this provision is not in its nature self-executing, and there is no express grant to Congress of power to carry it into effect, that body passed a law shortly after the Constitution was adopted, imposing upon the Governor of each State the duty to deliver up fugitives from justice found in such State.[192] The Supreme Court has accepted this contemporaneous construction as establishing the validity of this legislation.[193] The duty to surrender is not absolute and unqualified; if the laws of the State to which the fugitive has fled have been put in force against him, and he is imprisoned there, the demands of those laws may be satisfied before the duty of obedience to the requisition arises.[194] In Kentucky v. Dennison[195] the Court held, moreover, that this statute was merely declaratory of a moral duty; that the Federal Government "has no power to impose on a State officer, as such, any duty whatever, and compel him to perform it; * * *"[196] and consequently that a federal court could not issue a mandamus to compel the governor of one State to surrender a fugitive to another. In 1934 Congress plugged the loophole exposed by this decision by making it unlawful for any person to flee from one State to another for the purpose of avoiding prosecution in certain cases.[197]
FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE
To be a fugitive from justice within the meaning of this clause, it is not necessary that the party charged should have left the State after an indictment found, or for the purpose of avoiding a prosecution anticipated or begun. It is sufficient that the accused, having committed a crime within one State and having left the jurisdiction before being subjected to criminal process, is found within another State.[198] The motive which induced the departure is immaterial.[199] Even if he were brought involuntarily into the State where found by requisition from another State, he may be surrendered to a third State upon an extradition warrant.[200] A person indicted a second time for the same offense is nonetheless a fugitive from justice by reason of the fact that after dismissal of the first indictment, on which he was originally indicted, he left the State with the knowledge of, or without objection by, State authorities.[201] But a defendant cannot be extradited if he was only constructively present in the demanding State at the time of the commission of the crime charged.[202] For the purpose of determining who is a fugitive from justice, the words "treason, felony or other crime" embrace every act forbidden and made punishable by a law of a State,[203] including misdemeanors.[204]
Only after a person has been charged with crime in the regular course of judicial proceedings is the governor of a State entitled to make demand for his return from another State.[205] The person demanded has no constitutional right to be heard before the governor of the State in which he is found on the question whether he has been substantially charged with crime and is a fugitive from justice.[206] The constitutionally required surrender is not to be interfered with by habeas corpus upon speculations as to what ought to be the result of a trial.[207] Nor is it proper thereby to inquire into the motives controlling the actions of the governors of the demanding and surrendering States.[208] Matters of defense, such as the running of the statute of limitations, cannot be heard on habeas corpus, but must be determined at the trial.[209] A defendant will, however, be discharged on habeas corpus if he shows by clear and satisfactory evidence that he was outside the demanding State at the time of the crime.[210] If, however, the evidence is conflicting, habeas corpus is not a proper proceeding to try the question of alibi.[211]
TRIAL OF FUGITIVE AFTER REMOVAL
There is nothing in the Constitution or laws of the United States which exempts an offender, brought before the courts of a State for an offense against its laws, from trial and punishment, even though he was brought from another State by unlawful violence,[212] or by abuse of legal process,[213] and a fugitive lawfully extradited from another State may be tried for an offense other than that for which he was surrendered.[214] The rule is different, however, with respect to fugitives surrendered by a foreign government pursuant to treaty. In that case the offender may be tried only "for the offence with which he is charged in the proceedings for his extradition, until a reasonable time and opportunity have been given him, after his release or trial upon such charge, to return to the country from whose asylum he had been forcibly taken under those proceedings."[215]
Clause 3. No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.