Orlando Criminal Lawyer Blog
If you are residing or traveling through another state and you have contact with law enforcement, which leads to an arrest warrant showing up, you may be sent back or extradited to Florida. This often occurs as a result of a traffic stop and your driver’s license is checked. So, what started as a potential speeding ticket in, let’s say, Indiana, has now turned into your being arrested for a grand theft arrest warrant in Orange County, Florida, and being held in a DeKalb County, Indiana jail. The next step is extradition back to Florida.
Extradition is the transfer of a person from one state to another state (called the demanding state) for crimes committed in the demanding state. That person is called a fugitive. Depending on whether Florida is the demanding state or extraditing state, Florida State Attorneys will follow Florida State Statute 941.05 or 941.06, describing extradition protocol. Each state must also follow the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, which says the state must extradite the fugitive to the demanding state, but the implementation of the extradition guidelines is at each state’s discretion. In the example, the fugitive would be extradited to Orange County Police custody from DeKalb County Police custody for the grand theft warrant. By law, the fugitive must be extradited within 30 days of the arrest (except in extenuating circumstances).
In the extraditing state (our example would be Indiana), the fugitive arrested has three options.