California Must Honor Extradition, Court Rules

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a San Bernardino man must be returned to Louisiana to face charges that he kidnaped his two children, even though earlier he had won a California court order granting him custody.

The ruling follows nearly seven years of legal fighting between Richard Smollin and his former wife, Judith. Both won custody orders in their own states, without informing the other sides of what they were doing. In 1984, fed up with the slow judicial pace, Smollin and his father went to Louisiana and picked up the children, Jennifer and Jamie, at a school bus stop.

In their ruling, the justices rejected the right of a court in one state to void an extradition order from another. Without trying to decide who is right or wrong, they said only that the extradition agreements among the states require that the father face the charges that were duly filed against him in Louisiana.

Bird Court Ruling

Their 7-2 decision overturns a ruling from the California Supreme Court under former Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird. Although the California court conceded that Louisiana officials had properly filed charges against the father, it found that he was not “substantially charged” with a crime because a state court in San Bernardino County had granted him custody of the children.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said that Richard Smollin and his father, Gerald, may be “not only innocent of the charges made against them, but also victims of a possible abuse of the criminal process. But, under the Extradition Act, it is for the Louisiana courts to do justice in this case, not the California courts.”

In its next term beginning in October, the high court will hear a similar case in which a Los Angeles doctor is contesting a custody order won by his former wife, who now lives in Louisiana. In that case (Thompson vs. Thompson, 86-964), the court must decide whether federal courts should step in to settle conflicts among state courts.

The ruling issued Tuesday was the result of an appeal filed by California Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, who said that the Bird court opinion “creates a dangerous precedent” and could lead to a “Balkanizing of the administration of justice among the states.” Twenty states, including Louisiana, backed the appeal.

J. Robert Jipson, a deputy attorney general, said that the court’s ruling was significant because it makes clear that state courts have no grounds for standing in the way of a proper extradition order.

“This eliminates a gray area for the home courts. Even presuming he is innocent, the place to decide that is in Louisiana,” Jipson said of the case (California vs. Superior Court of San Bernardino County, 86-381).

A lawyer who represented the Smollins took comfort from the fact that the justices suggested the father may be innocent of kidnaping.

“The two governors (California’s George Deukmejian and Louisiana’s Edwin Edwards) should get on the phone and resolve this matter,” said Karen Snell, a San Francisco attorney. “If he is innocent, and we think that is clear now, it is absolutely absurd for this to go on any further.”

She noted that the San Bernardino County state court issued a divorce decree and later granted custody of the children to the father. The mother’s custody order should be considered invalid, Snell said.

While Tuesday’s ruling turned on whether a state court can refuse an extradition request, the high court is also expected to decide this month whether a governor can reject such an order. Former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., for example, refused on several occasions to extradite Indian activist Dennis Banks for sentencing in South Dakota.