Appeal
from the Superior Court, Fourth Judicial District, Fairbanks,
Trial Court No. 4FA-16-1381 CI Jane F. Kauvar, Judge.
JoyAnna Mickels, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan
Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant.
Donald
Soderstrom, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal
Appeals, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General,
Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock,
Superior Court Judge. [*]
OPINION
MANNHEIMER Judge
The
governor of Alaska issued a warrant for the extradition of
Jeffery John Buckley to the State of Oregon to face a charge
of criminal non-support (for failing to pay more than $20,
000 in child support). [1] Buckley challenged this extradition
warrant by filing a petition for writ of habeas corpus. The
superior court denied Buckley's habeas corpus petition,
and Buckley now appeals the superior court's decision on
two bases.
First,
Buckley points out that, even though the Oregon indictment
charging him with non-support spells his first name
"Jeffery", and even though the Oregon
governor's extradition request and the Alaska
governor's extradition warrant also spell his first name
"Jeffery", the underlying civil judgement imposing
the child support obligation spells his first name
differently - "Jeffrey".
But
Buckley has never denied that he is the person indicted for
criminal non-support in the State of Oregon, and the person
named in the Oregon governor's extradition request. The
Oregon indictment not only spells Buckley's name
correctly ("Jeffery"), but it also recites his date
of birth and his driver's license number, as well as the
name of his daughter (the child he is obligated to support).
Given
these circumstances, the fact that the underlying child
support order contains a different spelling of Buckley's
first name is irrelevant to the validity of the superior
court's extradition order. See Kelly v. State,
803 P.2d 876, 878 (Alaska App. 1990) (holding that
discrepancies in the extradition documentation will not
invalidate the extradition request if the record as a whole
shows that the discrepancy is a "mere clerical
error").
Buckley's
second argument is that the State of Oregon is not legally
entitled to demand his extradition. Buckley relies on the
wording of AS 12.70.020(a)(1), which declares,
No demand for the extradition of a person accused but not yet
convicted of a crime in another state shall be recognized by
the governor of this state unless ... [it] contain[s] ... an
allegation that the accused was present in the demanding
state at the time of the commission of the alleged crime and
that thereafter the accused fled the demanding state; except
that this allegation may not be required in a proceeding
based on AS 12.70.050[.]
Buckley
asserts that he was not present in the State of Oregon during
the time covered by the criminal non-support indictment - and
that, therefore, even if he did fail to pay the court-ordered
child support as alleged in the Oregon indictment, the
governor of Oregon could not properly allege that
"[Buckley] was present in the demanding state
[i.e., Oregon] at the time of the commission of the
alleged crime and that [he] thereafter ... fled the demanding
state".
Buckley's
argument overlooks the last clause of AS 12.70.020(a)(1) -
the clause declaring that, in cases covered by AS 12.70.050,
an extradition demand does not have to include an
allegation that the accused was physically present in the
demanding state when the crime was allegedly committed.
AS
12.70.050 expressly authorizes the governor of Alaska to
extradite a person charged with "committing an act in
[Alaska], or [in] a third state, intentionally resulting in a
crime in the [demanding] state ..., even though the accused
was not in [the demanding] state at the time ...