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People v. Minor8/31/2004
trine of "specialty" prohibits the requesting nation from prosecuting the extradited individual for any offense other than that for which the surrendering state agreed to **243 extradite.' (United States v. Van Cauwenberghe [ (9th Cir.1987) ] 827 F.2d 424, 428.) The doctrine is based on principles of international comity: to protect its own citizens in prosecutions abroad, the United States guarantees that it will honor limitations placed on prosecutions in the United States. (United States v. Cuevas [ (9th Cir.1988) ] 847 F.2d 1417, 1426.)" (U.S. v. Andonian (9th Cir.1994) 29 F.3d 1432, 1434-1435.)
On appeal, we review de novo the trial court's determination that the use of the Riverside felony conviction as an enhancement did not violate the doctrine of specialty. (U.S. v. Andonian, supra, 29 F.3d at p. 1434; U.S. v. Khan (9th Cir.1993) 993 F.2d 1368, 1372.)
In essence, Minor argues that because Italy agreed to extradite him only for prosecution of the assault on an officer case and the drunk driving case, and *1437 specifically prohibited prosecution or punishment for "facts ... other than those facts for which extradition has been granted," the People were barred from using the facts of the Riverside case to enhance the sentence in the Orange County cases. Thus, according to Minor, "the trial court's ruling allowing Orange County officials to punish [him] for the very Riverside offenses specifically excluded from the Italian extradition decree" violated the rule of speciality and the limitations in the extradition decree.
Minor's argument is based on a false premise: that use of the vehicular manslaughter conviction as an enhancing allegation punishes him for that crime. To the contrary, the United States Supreme Court has long made clear that enhanced punishment for recidivism does not punish the earlier offense. " '[E]nhancement statutes, whether in the nature of criminal history provisions such as those contained in the [federal] Sentencing Guidelines, or recidivist statutes which are common place in state criminal laws, do not change the penalty imposed for the earlier conviction.' [Citation.] In repeatedly upholding such recidivism statutes, we have rejected double jeopardy challenges because the enhanced punishment imposed for the later offense 'is not to be viewed as either a new jeopardy or additional penalty for the earlier crimes,' but instead as 'a stiffened penalty for the latest crime, which is considered to be an aggravated offense because a repetitive one.' [Citations.]" (Witte v. U.S. (1995) 515 U.S. 389, 400, 115 S.Ct. 2199, 132 L.Ed.2d 351; see also Ewing v. California (2003) 538 U.S. 11, 123 S.Ct. 1179, 1188, 155 L.Ed.2d 108 [citing same authority in upholding California's Three Strikes law].)
Because use of the manslaughter conviction as an enhancing allegation did not punish Minor for that earlier crime, this use did not violate the extradition order's stricture against punishing Minor for "facts ... other than those facts for which extradition has been granted."
The trial court reached this same conclusion by relying on the persuasive authority of a federal Ninth Circuit decision, United States v. Lazarevich (9th Cir.1998) 147 F.3d 1061 (Lazarevich ). In Lazarevich, the defendant was extradited from the Netherlands to face federal charges of passport fraud. Years earlier, he had kidnapped his six children from his wife's custody, lying on their passport applications to accomplish the flight abroad. The United States sought to extradite Lazarevich for both the kidnapping and passport fraud charges, but, as in the present case, the Netherlands only partially granted the application. The Netherlands refused to extradite him for kidnapping because he had already been tried and convicted of that charge
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