## Facts

- Joanne S. Adams and William M. Young litigated custody and visitation of their son in California; an order granted Adams legal and physical custody with specified holiday visitation for Young.
- After Adams relocated to Ohio, Young attempted to exercise the ordered Christmas visitation; Adams refused.
- Adams was served with a California contempt motion and notice of a hearing; she did not appear.
- The California court found Adams in contempt and changed custody from Adams to Young.
- Separate Ohio proceedings addressed enforcement of the California custody change; an Ohio appellate decision later found the custody-change order unenforceable in Ohio due to constitutionally inadequate notice for the California hearing.
- California authorities later charged Adams under California Penal Code § 278.5(b) (detention or concealment of a child in violation of a custody order) and issued an arrest warrant.
- California’s Governor requested extradition; Ohio’s Governor issued a warrant describing Adams as charged in California with the child detention/concealment offense.
- Adams was arrested in Ohio and filed an Ohio habeas corpus petition to block extradition; the trial court denied relief.

## Issues

1. Whether Adams could be extradited as a “fugitive from justice” when the alleged conduct largely occurred while she was in Ohio.
2. Whether Ohio could extradite Adams as a non-fugitive under the UCEA based on acts in Ohio intentionally resulting in a crime in California.
3. Whether alleged defects in the California custody/contempt proceedings (including inadequate notice) could invalidate extradition in an Ohio habeas corpus proceeding.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed denial of habeas corpus and left the Ohio Governor’s extradition warrant in effect.
- The court held extradition was permitted even if Adams was not a classic fugitive, because the UCEA authorizes extradition where in-state acts intentionally result in a crime in the demanding state.
- The court found the requisition materials and the Ohio Governor’s warrant facially sufficient and showing a pending criminal charge in California.
- The court refused to consider collateral attacks on California custody and contempt proceedings, treating those objections as matters for California courts in the criminal case.

## Legal Principles

- In extradition habeas corpus, the asylum state’s review is limited to whether: the papers are facially proper, the petitioner is charged with a crime in the demanding state, the petitioner is the person sought, and statutory criteria for extradition are satisfied.
- Under the UCEA, a person may be extradited even without physical presence in the demanding state at the time of the offense if the person’s acts in the asylum state intentionally result in a crime in the demanding state.
- The asylum state may not adjudicate the merits of the demanding state’s prosecution or review alleged jurisdictional or due-process errors in the demanding state’s underlying proceedings as a basis to block extradition.
- A prior determination limiting civil enforcement of an out-of-state custody order in the asylum state does not bar a later criminal extradition request based on the demanding state’s criminal charge.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Adams’s extradition to California, ruling that Ohio’s habeas review could not reach alleged defects in California custody proceedings and that the UCEA permits extradition based on out-of-state conduct in Ohio that allegedly caused a crime in California.


In re Extradition of Adams, 63 Ohio App. 3d 638, 579 N.E.2d 752 (Ohio Ct. App. 1989)