Frisbie v. Collins | |
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Argued January 28, 1952 Decided March 10, 1952 | |
Full case name | Frisbie, Warden v. Shirley Collins |
Citations | 342 U.S. 519 ( more ) 72 S. Ct. 509; 96 L. Ed. 2d 541; 1952 U.S. LEXIS 2343 |
Case history | |
Prior | Collins v. Frisbie, 189 F.2d 464 (6th Cir. 1951); cert. granted, 342 U.S. 865(1951). |
Subsequent | Rehearing denied, 343 U.S. 937(1952). |
Holding | |
There is nothing in the Constitution that requires a court to permit a guilty person rightfully convicted to escape justice because he was brought to trial against his will. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinion | |
Majority | Black, joined by unanimous |
Laws applied | |
Federal Kidnapping Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1201 |
Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519 (1952), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court, holding that kidnapping of a defendant by State authorities for the purpose of taking a suspect from one jurisdiction to another for criminal trial, is constitutional. [1] The defendant was tried in Michigan after being abducted by Michigan authorities in Chicago, Illinois. The case relied upon Ker v. Illinois (1886). [2] The Ker–Frisbie doctrine, continues to be used to uphold convictions based on illegal arrests.
Ker v. Illinois , decided in 1886, [2] was the first case to consider whether authorities are allowed to abduct criminal suspects in other countries in order to face trial in the United States. Frederick M. Ker, a U.S. citizen living in Peru, sought to avoid the charges of larceny and embezzlement. US president, President Chester Arthur, sent an agent to negotiate extradition with Peruvian authorities to bring Ker back to the US. Instead, the agent forcibly abducted Ker before the extradition was processed. Although Peru did not raise claims under its extradition treaty,[3] Ker argued that the US had committed extraterritorial abduction. The Supreme Court ruled, "such forcible abduction is no sufficient reason why the party should not answer when brought within the jurisdiction of the court which has the right to try him for such an offense and presents no valid objection to his trial in such court”.[4]
Shirley Collins filed a Habeas corpus case in a United States District Court seeking release from a Michigan state prison where he was serving a life sentence for murder. He was forcibly taken to Michigan to stand trial. Collins sought to nullify his conviction under these circumstances, claiming that trial and conviction under such circumstances is in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Federal Kidnaping Act.
The District Court denied the writ of Habeas corpus without a hearing on the ground that the state court has power to try a defendant, "regardless of how presence was procured." The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the decision of the lower court, with one judge dissenting. It held that the Federal Kidnaping Act had changed the rule that a state could constitutionally try and convict a defendant who had been forcibly brought to its jurisdiction.
The Federal Kidnapping Act, was enacted in 1932 and made it a felony to transport any person across state lines. Persons who have violated it can be imprisoned for a term of years or for life; under some circumstances violators can be given the death sentence. The Court of Appeals thought that to continue to allow forcible removal across state lines after the passage of the Kidnaping Act "would in practical effect lend encouragement to the commission of criminal acts by those sworn to enforce the law."
Justice Hugo Black delivered the opinion of the court, reaffirming the Ker v. Illinois ruling that forcible abduction into a jurisdiction does not impair the power of a court to try a person for a crime. In rejecting the Appeals Court holding, the Supreme Court found that the severity of the sanctions under the Kidnapping Act made it unlikely that Congress had intended for them to apply to law enforcement officers and a state's ability to try a person wrongfully brought to its jurisdiction.
Frisbie v. Collins has been cited 13 times by the US Supreme Court, often regarding federal/state jurisdictional issues. On substantive grounds, it has been consistently used in support of a general proposition that an illegal arrest does not void a subsequent conviction.
Notably, Frisbie was relied upon in the 1980 case United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463 (1980), in both the opinion written by William J. Brennan Jr. and the two concurring opinions upholding the decision of the lower court. In this case, the defendant had been illegally arrested and a photograph was taken. The victim of an assault was shown the photo and subsequently identified the defendant in both a lineup and in court. The trial court determined that the initial arrest was illegal and therefore excluded the photo and lineup identification from a subsequent trial. However, it also concluded that the courtroom identification was the product of independent recollection. The concurring opinion by Justice Byron White, with whom Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justice William Rehnquist joined, directly addressed the question of whether a face could ever be excluded as the fruit of an illegal arrest. This issue had been left open in the main opinion. White's position was that "The fact that respondent was present at trial and therefore capable of being identified by the victim is merely the inevitable result of the trial being held, which is permissible under Frisbie, despite respondent's unlawful arrest."
Frisbie was most recently cited in 1992 in deciding United States v. Alvarez-Machain. That case involved the abduction of a Mexican citizen by US officials and a violation of the territorial integrity of Mexico country. The court acknowledged the validity of the Ker-Frisbie doctrine and considered whether it would apply when the illegal abduction was done in the context of violating the clear terms of an extradition treaty. The court held that a defendant has no rights under international law or an extradition treaty. Justice Stevens wrote the minority opinion, joined by justices Harry Blackmun and Sandra Day O'Connor, writing: “It is clear that Mexico's demand must be honored if this official abduction violated the 1978 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Mexico.”
A summary offence or petty offence is a violation in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded against summarily, without the right to a jury trial and/or indictment.
Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdictions and depends on the arrangements made between them. In addition to legal aspects of the process, extradition also involves the physical transfer of custody of the person being extradited to the legal authority of the requesting jurisdiction.
Trial in absentia is a criminal proceeding in a court of law in which the person who is subject to it is not physically present at those proceedings. In absentia is Latin for "in (the) absence". Its meaning varies by jurisdiction and legal system.
United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the respondent's forcible abduction from a foreign country, despite the existence of an extradition treaty with said country, does not prohibit him from being tried before a U.S. court for violations of American criminal laws. The ruling reconfirmed the Ker-Frisbie Doctrine, established in Ker v. Illinois (1886) and Frisbie v. Collins (1952), which generally permits the prosecution of criminal defendants regardless of whether their presence was obtained in accordance with an applicable extradition treaty.
In law, rendition is a "surrender" or "handing over" of persons or property, particularly from one jurisdiction to another. For criminal suspects, extradition is the most common type of rendition. Rendition can also be seen as the act of handing over, after the request for extradition has taken place.
The Ker–Frisbie doctrine is applied in the context of extradition and generally holds that criminal defendants may be prosecuted in United States courts regardless of whether their presence has been obtained through the use of applicable extradition treaties.
Canada v Schmidt, [1987] 1 S.C.R. 500, is a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the applicability of fundamental justice under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on extradition. While fundamental justice in Canada included a variety of legal protections, the Court found that in considering the punishments one might face when extradited to another country, only those that "shock the conscience" would breach fundamental justice.
Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23 (1963), was a case before the United States Supreme Court, which incorporated the Fourth Amendment's protections against illegal search and seizure. The case was decided on June 10, 1963, by a vote of 5–4.
Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436 (1886), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously held that a fugitive kidnapped from abroad could not claim any violation of the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.
Male captus, bene detentus is a legal doctrine, according to which the fact that a person may have been wrongly or unfairly arrested, will not prejudice a rightful detention or trial under due process.
Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82 (1985), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that, because of the doctrine of "dual sovereignty", the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution does not prohibit one state from prosecuting and punishing somebody for an act of which they had already been convicted of and sentenced for in another state.
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: "[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb..." The four essential protections included are prohibitions against, for the same offense:
James v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 307 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court forbade the admission of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment for the use of impeaching statements made by a defense witness.
Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that defense witnesses can be prevented from testifying under certain circumstances, even if that hurts the defense's case. Taylor was the first case to hold that there is no absolute bar to blocking the testimony of a surprise witness, even if that is an essential witness for the defendant, a limitation of the broad right to present a defense recognized in Washington v. Texas (1967).
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During the tenure of Morrison Waite as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court heard an unprecedented volume and frequency of criminal cases. In just fourteen years, the Court heard 106 criminal cases, almost as many cases as the Supreme Court had heard in the period from its creation to the appointment of Waite as Chief Justice. Notable cases include United States v. Cruikshank (1875), United States v. Reese (1875), Reynolds v. United States (1878), Wilkerson v. Utah (1879), the Trade-Mark Cases (1879), Strauder v. West Virginia (1880), Pace v. Alabama (1883), United States v. Harris (1883), Ex parte Crow Dog (1883), Hurtado v. California (1884), Clawson v. United States (1885), Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), United States v. Kagama (1886), Ker v. Illinois (1886), and Mugler v. Kansas (1887).
Sidney Leonard Jaffe was an American-born Canadian businessman who was kidnapped from outside his Toronto home in 1981 by American bounty hunters Timm Johnsen and Daniel Kear and transported to Florida after failing to appear for a trial there on charges of land sales fraud. His conviction on the fraud charges was overturned on appeal; his conviction on an additional charge of failure to appear for trial was upheld, but he was paroled after two years and returned to Canada. At the request of the Canadian government, Jaffe declined to appear at a new Florida trial on further land fraud charges in 1985. Johnsen and Kear were extradited to Canada and convicted of kidnapping in 1986, but were set free pending appeal, and their sentences were reduced to time served in 1989, after which they returned to the United States. The Jaffe incident caused significant tensions in Canada–United States relations, and resulted in a 1988 exchange of letters between the two countries on cross-border kidnappings.
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