## Facts

- A California court entered and later modified custody decrees awarding Richard Smolin sole custody of his minor children.
- Richard Smolin and his father, Gerard Smolin, obtained a California warrant to obtain custody and traveled to Louisiana, where the children were living with their mother, and took the children.
- The mother filed an affidavit in Louisiana accusing the Smolins of kidnapping under a Louisiana statute criminalizing a parent’s intentional taking of a child from a person awarded custody by a court of competent jurisdiction.
- Louisiana’s governor demanded the Smolins’ extradition from California for prosecution.
- A California superior court granted habeas relief and blocked extradition, relying on the California custody orders to conclude the Smolins were not “substantially charged” under Louisiana law.
- The California Court of Appeal ordered extradition to proceed, but the California Supreme Court reversed, holding that the custody decrees (treated as conclusive under the Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act of 1980) established lawful custody and therefore negated the Louisiana kidnapping charge.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted review to determine whether California could refuse extradition on that basis.

## Issues

1. Whether the federal Extradition Act permits an asylum state to deny extradition by evaluating custody orders and the PKPA to conclude the demanded person is not “substantially charged” with a crime in the demanding state.
2. Whether asylum-state habeas review may extend beyond the limited verification of formal extradition prerequisites.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the California Supreme Court.
- The Court held that the Extradition Act bars the asylum state from refusing extradition on the ground that a defense (including one based on custody decrees and the PKPA) defeats criminal liability in the demanding state.
- The Court reaffirmed extradition as a summary, mandatory process with limited judicial review in the asylum state.
- Because the extradition documents were facially proper, the Smolins were formally charged, they were the persons named, and they were fugitives, California was required to permit extradition.

## Legal Principles

- Interstate extradition under 18 U.S.C. § 3182 is a summary and mandatory executive proceeding; asylum-state courts have a narrowly confined role.
- In asylum-state habeas proceedings, the permissible inquiry is limited to whether: (a) the documents are facially in order; (b) the person has been charged with a crime in the demanding state; (c) the person is the person named; and (d) the person is a fugitive.
- The “charged with a crime” inquiry is formal; it does not authorize adjudication of the demanding state’s substantive law or merits-based defenses.
- Claims that custody decrees (including those entitled to recognition under the PKPA) negate elements of the demanding state’s offense must be raised in the demanding state’s courts, not used as a threshold bar to extradition in the asylum state.

## Conclusion

The Court required California to honor Louisiana’s extradition demand, holding that asylum-state courts may not block extradition by resolving defenses grounded in custody orders or the PKPA and may review only the limited, formal prerequisites specified by federal extradition law.


California v. Superior Court of Cal., 482 U.S. 400 (1987)