Lead Opinion
Thе appellants are three banks, The First National City Bank of New York (City Bank), French American Banking Corporation (French American), the Royal Bank of Canada, and Silvio Gutierrez, a depositor with Chemical Bank New York Trust Company, and Napoleon Dupouy, a depositor in City Bank and French American. Appellants appeal from an order which denied appellants’ motions to quash subpoenas duces tecum issued by the Clerk of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. Previously, United States District Court Judge Mathes of the Southern District of California, sitting as an extradition magistrate in the Southern Distriсt of Florida, had .granted appellee “permission to resort to the deposition procedure provided in Rules 26 and 45 and related provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including, without limitations, procedure for subpoenas duces tecum, to secure evidence from any appropriate officials of First National City Bank of New York, of French American Banking Corporation, and Royal Bank of Canada, all in New York City.”
Involved is an international extradition proceeding initiated by Manuel Aristeguieta, Consul General of the Republic of Venezuela, on behаlf of ap-pellee, the Republic of Venezuela (Venezuela), in which the return to Venezuela of Marcos Perez Jimenez, a former president of Venezuela, now in the State of Florida, is sought. The complaint filed by Venezuela in the Southern District of Florida charges Jimenez with a number of crimes alleged to have been committed in Venezuela, which are extraditable under the Treaty of Extradition between the United States and Venezuela (43 Stat. 1698). The crimes include four murders, the unlawful abstraction and misappropriation to his own personal use of large sums оf money and the illegal receipt of various commissions, all to his illicit enrichment at the expense of the Republic of Venezuela.
More specifically, the complaint in substance alleges that the Attorney-General of Venezuela filed a bill of charges
Thereafter, subpoenas were served in New York, returnable in Miama, Florida, requiring the banks to produce certain specified records. The banks responded by moving to quash; the motions were denied and thereafter an appeal was taken by the banks and others (including appellant depositors) to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The appellants there argued that subpoenas in an extradition proceeding could not properly be issued on behalf of the demanding country and, alternatively, that the particular subpoenas were invalid because they purported to extend the Court’s process beyond 100 miles from the Court House in Miami, see Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. 45(e) (1). The United States filed a brief amicus curiae (as has been done in this court) contending that the power of an extradition magistrate includes nationwide compulsory process.
In the interest of expedition the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down a per curiam opinion, Chief Judge Rives dissenting, in which the grounds of decision were not stated. The court simply concluded that the order of the District Court should be reversed and the subpoenas quashed. Aristequieta v. Jimenez, 5 Cir., 1960,
The foundation for international extradition lies within a short statutory framework, 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 3184-3195,. and whatever treaty is applicable to the foreign country seeking delivery. The treaty with Vеnezuela, supra (a fairly standardized version of comparable agreements with other nations) provides that upon requisition a person charged with any of the crimes specified in Article II shall be surrendered by the country of asylum.
The purpose of the Treaty is “to facilitate the course of punitive justice- * * to prevent the impunity which would result from the escape of guilty persons and of their asylum in the territory of one or the other nation,” and to-provide for the extradition of the accused as well as the sentenced. The method' agreed upon was “tо deliver up to justice, by means of requisition duly made-as herein provided, any person who may be charged with or may have been convicted of any of the crimes committed within the jurisdiction of one of the-Contracting Parties and specified in-Article II of this Convention, while said' person actually was within such jurisdiction when the crime was committed,, and who shall seek asylum or who shall be found within the territories of the-other.” To assure each contracting country of comparable criminal standards the surrender was to be made “only upon such evidence of guilt as, according to the laws of the country in which the-fugitive or accused shall be found, would justify his detention and commitment for trial if the crime or offense had been committed there” (Article I).
Neither statutes nor decided cases furnish satisfactory guides as to procedures for obtaining proof upon extradition proceedings. However, the courts have compared these proceedings with
“preliminary examinations which take place every day in this country before an examining or committing magistrаte for the purpose of determining whether a case is made out which will justify the holding of the accused, either by imprisonment or under bail, to ultimately answer to an indictment, or other proceeding, in which he shall be finally tried upon the charge made against him.” Benson v. McMahon, 1888,127 U.S. 457 , 463,8 S.Ct. 1240 , 1243,32 L.Ed. 234 .
Adhering to this analogy, the question, thus, is whether probable cause has been established to suppose the fugitive guilty, Glucksman v. Henkel, 1911,
It was early recognized that upon an extradition hearing the evidence necessary to make out a prima facie сase would be located in the country where the crime was committed and that the object of extradition would be defeated if the demanding country were put to the onerous task of transporting witnesses in person to the United States (Bingham v. Bradley, 1916,
Finally, if the magistrate finds the evidence insufficient, he may discharge the defendant although the demanding country may later institute a second proceeding (Collins v. Loisel, 1923,
First arises the question as to this court’s appellate jurisdiction. Normally subpoena orders are interlocutory in nature and thus not appealable until the conclusion of the entire proceeding (Cobbledick v. United States, 1940,
The interrelated issues raised by the parties to this appeal may be summarized as follows:
(1) The banks contend that 18 U.S.C. § 3190, which authorizes the admission in evidence of depositions and other papers certified abroad, is the exclusive evidentiary vehicle for the demanding country. They maintain that the basic principle and purpose of extradition presupposes that the demanding country must collect, in documentary form, all of its evidence at home and come to the country of asylum armed with a prima facie case. In support of the contrary position, Venezuela cites Article XI of the Treaty which provides for submitting to the asylum State the warrant of arrest in the country where the crime was committed and the depositions upon which such warrant may have been issued, “with such other evidence or proof as may be deemed competent in the case.” Venezuela contends that this refers to evidence in addition to that which was acted on in the demanding country and includes evidence which may be found in the United States. A contrary interpretation, it is argued, would frustrate the purpose of the Treaty by encouraging fugitives to remove and conceal here evidence of culpability. As additional authority for this position are a number of cases where evidence obtained in the United States was admitted at the extradition hearing. See, e. g., McNamara v. Henkel, 1913,
(2) Conceding, in the alternative, that possibly witnesses in the United States may testify on behalf of the demanding country, the banks next argue that civil discovery cannot be availed of and that attendance cannot be compelled through use of a subpoena since there is nothing in the extradition treaties or statutes that would authorize the issuance of subpoenas at the behest of the demanding country. They assert that extradition is a non judicial proceeding conducted before a magistrate, and is not a proceeding within the jurisdiction of a United States District Court or of any Court. Thus, they claim, extradition is neither a “suit of a civil nature” to which the Federal Rules of Civil' Procedure would apply, nor a judicial proceeding to which any inherent power of a court would attach. Venezuela, on the other hand, contends that an extradition hearing has many of the attributes of a judicial proceeding; that the extradition magistrate thus has the usual powers of a judge; and that since the treaties and statutes do not spell out the procedural details of extradition, the magistrate may invoke his inherent power to providе himself with appropriate in
(3) Appellants next urge that even if the extradition magistrate has the power to subpoena witnesses for the demanding country, he has no authority to authorize the demanding country to avail itself of the deposition-subpoena procedures provided for in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Pointing out that the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are specifically declared to be inapplicable to extradition proceedings and that the Civil Rules should not be available in a quasi-criminal proceeding, appellаnts contend that in the absence of statute there is no power in the federal courts or judges to authorize the taking of depositions. In addition, appellants assert that the basic principle of extradition militates against permitting the demanding country to invoke the judicial processes of the United States in order to “discover” evidence to be used at home. Venezuela, although admitting in its brief that “the Rules [Civil Procedure] are not mandatory in extradition,” nevertheless takes the position that "Within his discretion under Article XI the extradition judge may do what a district judge may normally do, when no particular procedure is prescribed for the case — he may follow as a model, in ■exercising his discretion, the pattern provided by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
(4) Appellant Dupouy, while not joining completely in the position taken by the banks,
Venezuela would thus vest the extradition magistrate with some inherent power, including the right to borrow from the Civil Rules, to fill a procedural vacuum in the extradition treaties and statutes. The ultimate issues posed for adjudication are thus (a) whether the extradition magistrate has the power to authorize the demanding country to use deposition-subpoena provisions as provided for in the Civil Rules, and (b) whether this case is appropriate for the exercise of such power.
Preliminarily, it may be noted that we are not called upon to approve of a situation where a court, in which the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are not mandatory, has borrowed a relatively minor provision from these Rules. See Union National Bank of Wichita, Kan. v. Lamb, 1949,
In this connection the recent Supreme Court decision of Miner v. Atlass, 1960,
“The problem thеn is one which peculiarly calls for exacting observance of the statutory procedures surrounding the rule-making powers of the Court, see 28 U.S.C. § 331, 28 U.S.C.A. § 331 (advisory function of Judicial Conference), 28 U.S.C. § 2073, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2073 (prior report of proposed rule to Congress), designed to insure that basic procedural innovations shall be introduced only after mature consideration of informed opinion from all relevant quarters with all the opportunities for comprehensive and integrated treatment which such consideration affords. Having already concluded that the discovery-deposition procedure is not authorized by the General Admiralty Rules themselves, we should hesitate to construe General Rule 44 as permitting a change so basic as this to be effectuated through the local rule-making power, especially when that course was never reported to Congress as would now be required under 28 U.S.C. § 2073, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2073.”363 U.S. at page 650 ,80 S.Ct. at page 1306 .
The Miner ease, of course, is not cited as authority that the procedural innovation sought to be used in this ease is or is not within the rule-making power of the Supreme Court, or that the extradition magistrate may or may not be authorized to order the taking of depositions under any circumstances. Implicit in Miner, however, is the warning that federal courts must proceed with extreme caution when asked to sanction basic procedural innovations which lie in that misty land where-judicial and legislative powers meet.
Even under the liberal provisions of the Civil Rules, certain courts have indicated that when a party seeks the production of documents under Rules 34 or 45, some showing of need is necessary after the proper objection has been made.
“Unlike the practice in civil cases in which depositions may be tаken as a matter of right * * * it was contemplated that in criminal cases depositions would be used only in exceptional situations.” Note to preceding Rule 15, 18 U.S.C.A.8
It is also not without significance that the United States Government, which in federal criminal prosecutions is in some respects in a position similar to the demanding country in an extradition proceeding, cannot avail itself of the deposition privilege made available to defendants by Criminal Rule 15. The unavailability of this procedure to federal prosecutors indicates that even if the demanding country should not be denied the privilege absolutely, nevertheless whatever deposition privilege may be granted to the demanding country should be exercisable only in exceptional situations where a strong showing of need is made.
Nor is the policy favoring and facilitating extradition (see Factor v. Laubenheimer, 1933,
We thus turn to the crucial question in this case, namely, has Venezuela shown such exceptional circumstances as would justify the granting of the depositions it seeks. The complaint filed by Venezuela charges Jimenez inter alia with various financial crimes involving misappropriation of public funds in violation of various provisions of the Penal Code of Venezuela. The supporting documents, totalling approximately 2,000 pages, filed in the extradition hearing, include charges by the Attorney General of Venezuela, the finding of the highest court of that country that the charges and evidence establish cause for prosecution and arrest, the warrant of arrest of that court, and a substantial quantity of evidence submitted to that court.
According to counsel for Venezuela, the evidence discloses that many of the illegal financial transactions charged were accomplished with the assistance of others using facilities of certain banks in the United States, including the banks involved in these appeals. Asserting that Jimenez has on deposit in United States banks about $4,400,000, Venezuela claims that these depositions will serve the following purpose:
“Existing sources will trace to its illegal sources about $500,000 of these deposits. The record of the banks to which the deposition subpoenas are directed will assist in tracing the balance to its sources, and there is every likelihood that these records will disclose significant additional deposits.”
Although at the hearing below and at the proceedings in Miami it was determined that the evidence sought by the depositions was material and relevant, no determination has yet been made that this evidencе is neces'sary to Venezuela’s prima facie extradition case. The application to take depositions is directed towards the crime of “Embezzlement or criminal malversation” and under Article II of the Treaty the amount embezzled to constitute an extraditable offense must exceed $200 (USA) or B.1,000 (Venezuela). Without further discovery, Venezuela already has existing sources which will trace about $500,000, an amount far in excess of the statutory requirement. Naturally, Venezuela would like to trace the balance of the alleged $4,400,000 which it believes may be on deposit in American bаnks. It also hopes that the depositions “will disclose significant additional deposits.” However, the extradition hearing is not the occasion on which the accused’s guilt is to be established with the certainty and finality as would be required upon the actual trial. Were this a proceeding in our courts for the discovery of assets, the relief granted
The orders are reversed.
Notes
. Limited collateral review, however, is available by way of habeas corpus, see Fernandez v. Phillips, 1925,
. In holding the order of Judge Mathes denying the motion to quash the original subрoenas to be appealable, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was unanimous.
. The other depositor-appellant, Gutierrez, joins in all the arguments. The standing of tlie depositors to challenge the subpoenas is not disputed.
. The cases cited in the briefs and cases examined in independent research do not shod any authoritative light on the subject.
. For cases which indicate that in the absence of statute there exists no power to authorize pre-trial depositions, sea Hanks Dental Ass’n v. International Tooth Crown Co., 1904,
. Compare Boeing Airplane Co. v. Coggeshall, 1960,
. Extradition proceedings have been referred to by the Supreme Court as being of a criminal nature. See Grin v. Shine, 1902,
. See also 18 U.S.C.A. § 3191, which authorizes the extradition magistrate to subpoena witnesses for indigent fugitives when the fugitive cannot “safely go to trial without them.” In Gallina v. Eraser, D.C.Conn., 1959,
. Reserving the right to move to open at a later date, counsel for Venezuela told Judge Mathes it was resting on that record.
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring) .
I concur in the result.
