REFORM OF THE EXTRADITION LAWS OF THE

UNITED STATES

THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1983

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME

OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D.C

The subcommittee met at 2:25 p.m., in room B-352, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William J. Hughes (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Hughes and Sawyer.

Staff present: Hayden Gregory, counsel; Virginia Sloan, assistant counsel; and Charlene Vanlier, associate counsel.

Mr. HUGHES. The Subcommittee on Crime will come to order. First, let me apologize for the delay. I understand my staff has indicated the problem we have had, and that is that the full Judiciary Committee has been marking up our major comprehensive immigration bill and it ran over. And as you may expect, we're not permitted to meet while the full committee is in session nor would it have been advisable, considering the nature of the legislation before the committee. So, I just hope you understand, and we apologize for any inconvenience today.

Today is the second day of the Subcommittee on Crime's hearings on H.R. 2643, "The Extradition Act of 1983." The purpose of H.R. 2643 is to modernize the extradition laws of this country, which are universally conceded to be antiquated and inadequate to deal with modern political and legal systems. While filling in major gaps in the substance of the current law, the bill attempts to maintain the structure of the current law.

Last week, the subcommittee took testimony from the Departments of State and Justice, and from the American Civil Liberties Union. All of these witnesses made helpful suggestions about the state of our extradition laws, and about how the legislation should modify those laws.

Today, I am certain we will hear equally valuable testimony. The witnesses before us today are uniquely qualified to discuss the extradition laws from a practical and legal standpoint. We will hear from a Federal magistrate; from a law professor who has written. extensively on extradition; from another lawyer who has evaluated the extradition laws for the American Bar Association; and from the director of the political asylum project for the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights.

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Our first witness is Magistrate Peter Palermo of the southern district of Florida.

Magistrate Palermo is the chief of the magistrates' division for the southern district of Florida. He was one of the first Federal magistrates appointed in this country, and has been the chief magistrate for the last 4 years.

Before being appointed to the bench, Magistrate Palermo spent some 20 years in private practice in his own firm in Miami, and was a prosecutor for the State of Florida.

He is a graduate of the University of Miami Law School.

Magistrate Palermo, we're just delighted to have you with us today. Welcome.

TESTIMONY OF HON. PETER PALERMO, MAGISTRATE, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

Magistrate PALERMO. Congressman, I appreciate the opportunity of being here. I had rather short notice and had a difficult time getting here; but I am here.

Mr. HUGHES. Well, we're just delighted that you're here.

Magistrate PALERMO. I would like to just make some comments from the practical end of it rather than the theoretical end of it. Mr. HUGHES. That is what we want.

Magistrate PALERMO. I've gone over the last bill that I happened to have in H.R. 2643. Your statement I find to be practical and excellent in endeavoring to-my thinking as well, for the bill, for whatever it is worth.

I, personally, have had many extraditions and have let several out on bond. I haven't had any problem with the bondable part, as it is now, with special exceptions. And I don't know of anybody that I know in the United States that is letting more out on bond than I have and have had no trouble fitting it within the special exceptions.

Mr. Abbell and I were talking, and we recalled one we had where both were American, natural-born citizens, and wanted to be extradited to one of the islands, and two brothers. And the mother and the father were in court and had a business, and without one of the boys there, the business was going under. The father was an invalid. We fitted it into special exceptions, but we also only let one brother out at a time to help mother and father under those exceptions.

And it worked out fine. And I have had no problem with that. I have not had any problem with the political exception since the fifth circuit in Escobedo defined it clearly and in wording that they have recited there as to the political offense under extradition as defined “as an offense committed in the course of and incidental to a violent political disturbance, such as a war, revolution, or rebellion", and clearly stated that political motive, in itself, is not sufficient. So that, to me, gave the courts a fairly good guideline to go by.

And, of course, the next question is: What is a revolution and what is a rebellion? And the Bay of Pigs probably could have been considered a rebellion. In my opinion the PLO matter would not be

that type of thing. But that is something that is going to have to fit a factual basis rather than trying to define it.

With the bill as you have it, though, I think that the recommendations in there for keeping the Government and the demanding nations' feet to the fire to proceed as expeditiously as possible under the treaty, to have the matters taken care of, is wonderful, and it is great, and is something that was needed, after a man has been declared extraditable, and give them so many days to do it or else. And it's more than fair, and still it would come under the treaty. And that type, I think, is great.

I know your other big problem is the review. I find no fault with review, provided you're not giving two bites at the apple. In all fairness I think you should have fair hearings and so forth, but if they're going to have two bites at the apple-

Having been a defense attorney for many years, I look at everything that I read, including search warrants, from the defense angle first. And I looked at this bill from this angle. And I can see that if you give them direct review, then you're going to go on for at least 6 months to a year, and then they're going to come back with habeas corpus. If you do restrict-and I understand you are trying to restrict-habeas corpus, too, when they come back and can do that, that might solve that problem. But it is one that I am sure you are aware of. But as the practical end, it should be proceeded very cautiously; otherwise, we're just cluttering up the courts more. The courts don't need it.

On the other hand, I realize that, as I say, football is rugby, football is the National Football League, football is Canadian football, but there surely are different ball games altogether; and extradition is that way. And it is difficult for the sitting judge to put his hat on and forget a great deal that they learned in law school and apply the treaty and the laws as you've set forth. And unless we do that, we can't do the job under that particular statute.

I think the appointment-of-counsel features are excellent and much needed. As you say, there is not any quibbling about that. The bond question, as I said, is a difficulty. You have difficultysome people have difficulty. First, we've got to decide if we're bonding them; and that is the difficulty here, not the conditions. Once they're decided to be bondable, the conditions are easy; as set forth here, they are excellent. Because they are the ones that we would consider, anyhow.

You may broaden the scope of the exceptional circumstances. I would definitely be against having them come under the Bond Reform Act. I think it is a different ball game.

I think that you had a great deal of trouble in the prisoner exchange programs when it was first adopted. From talking with other countries' officials, I can see where we would have a great deal of problems if, you know, one just said to the effect, "I'll just take my football and go home if you don't do what the treaty says.' I can see problems there if we apply that.

On the other hand, as I said, I haven't had any problems fitting it under the exceptions, the special exceptions we now have in existence. I know of, as I say, several that would fit there. And it was upheld, where it did go to the appellate court and it is being