Washington, DC –U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today called on President Bush to ask Mexican President Vicente Fox for support in ensuring that violent criminals who flee to Mexico can be extradited for prosecution in this country.

Senator Feinstein introduced a resolution in the Senate last year calling on President Bush to renegotiate the U.S.-Mexican Extradition Treaty or take other action to ensure that criminal suspects wanted for serious crimes cannot flee to Mexico to escape punishment.

Under the U.S.-Mexico Extradition Treaty, which went into effect in 1980, neither Mexico nor the United States is bound to deliver its nationals for extradition and both countries may refuse to extradite unless the country seeking extradition assures that it will not impose the death penalty.

However, recently Mexico unilaterally interpreted the treaty in a way that significantly curtailed the ability of the United States to extradite persons charged with serious crimes. In October 2001, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the U.S.-Mexico Extradition Treaty bars the extradition to the United States of anyone who faces a potential life term in prison.

In other words, if a person commits a serious crime in the United States - one that could subject him or her to a maximum life term-and flees to Mexico, Mexico will refuse to extradite that person to the United States to face prosecution and punishment in this country, unless the U.S. first gives assurances guaranteeing a sentence of a fixed number of years. In the United States, however, neither a judge nor a prosecutor is permitted to give such assurances. As a result, people who commit a serious crimes in the United States and flee to Mexico typically escape justice.

The following is the text of Senator Feinstein's letter: “I write to urge that when you meet with Mexican President Fox you address the problem of extraditing fugitives from Mexico to the United States to face criminal charges in this country.   I also ask that you seek his commitment that violent criminals who flee to Mexico be returned to the United States expeditiously.

In October 2001, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment is a violation of the Mexican constitution.  Because this ruling extends to extradition treaties, it is virtually impossible to extradite a suspect from Mexico if that suspect will face life in prison.  The result is that serious felons are able escape just punishment by fleeing to Mexico.  If you steal a car in the U.S., Mexico will return you to face prosecution and punishment. If you kill the driver, Mexico will protect you.

While it has been difficult to determine the full scope of the problem, I am informed by prosecutors in my home state of California that, as a result of the ruling, there are as many as 350 people who have committed murder and other serious crimes in California who have not been extradited. 

On April 29, 2002, Armando Garcia, a Mexican national who had been previously charged in the U.S. with two counts of attempted murder, allegedly shot and killed, execution-style, 33-year-old Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff David March during a routine traffic stop in Irwindale, CA. Garcia then fled to Mexico, where he remains a free man.    Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley has not formally requested Garcia's extradition because he says that there is no point. Mexico will demand that Cooley promise that Garcia will not receive life in prison for his crime--a promise that cannot be made because in this country sentences are up to a judge to set, once a person has been convicted of a crime. The result is that Garcia remains at large in Mexico.

I have already introduced a resolution in the United States Senate that asks you, as President, to address this extradition issue and, if necessary, to renegotiate the treaty to ensure that criminals are brought to justice.

I am asking, when you meet with President Fox on January 15, that you urge him to take all appropriate steps to see that the Extradition Treaty's intent be carried out.   The United States can and must retain discretion to prosecute and punish its most dangerous and violent offenders who commit crimes in the United States according to U.S. laws. Criminals should not be allowed to escape justice in the U.S. for the price of a bus ticket to Mexico.”

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