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1 1 (June 13, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbaat0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ SResearch Service Extradition of U.S. Citizens June 13, 2019 Introduction The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) recently refused to bar the extradition to the Czech Republic of a U.S. citizen, Ivo Knotek, who challenged his extradition on constitutional grounds. The federal international extradition process has several unusual aspects, but the Ninth Circuit case is somewhat unique even among extradition cases. In addition to other uncommon features, it explores the circumstances under which the United States will extradite one of its own citizens. International extradition is essentially a diplomatic process in which the courts play a limited but often critical role. CRS Rep. Extradition of an individual found in this country is largely a matter of treaty. The Department of Justice initiates extradition hearings at the request of the Secretary of State and on behalf of the foreign government. The federal magistrate who conducts the extradition hearing certifies that an individual is extraditable if the magistrate determines that an applicable extradition treaty exists; that the individual is subject to extradition under the treaty; and that probable cause or its rough equivalent exists to believe the individual committed the offense or was sentenced as alleged. Knotek was born in what was then Czechoslovakia. He entered the United States as a refugee from the Czechoslovakian Communist regime in 1977 and became a U.S. citizen in 1985. Sometime after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Knotek visited the Czech Republic where he was tried and convicted of attempted extortion. He returned to the United States, and eight years later in 2010 the Czech Republic sought his extradition to begin serving the sentence of imprisonment for attempted extortion. The Treaty The applicable extradition treaty dates from 1925 and thus predates the Czech Republic. The United States and the Czech Republic, however, ratified amendments to the Czechoslovakian treaty and those amendments became effective in 2010. Beginning in his extradition hearing, Knotek argued that he was not subject to extradition because he had not committed an extraditable offense under the amended treaty (the Treaty) and alternatively because his American citizenship precluded his extradition. The Treaty obligates the parties to surrender an individual found in one country and sought for criminal trial or service of sentence in the other, if the crime at issue is extraditable under the Treaty. The Treaty, as amended, clears away many of the obstacles that might have defeated extradition under the original Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10308 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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