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Manta v. Chertoff (9th Cir. - March 11, 2008)

By Shaun Martin

Does it really take almost a full decade to extradite someone to Greece for a run-of-the-mill crime? It does here.

Greece asked for Crystalla Kyriakidou to be extradited from the U.S. to Greece in 1999. You'd have thought that she'd have been sent packing way before 2008. But, apparently, things don't always go fairly smoothly. Though I can't see why. This seems a pretty routine and easy case.

I can't blame the district judge (Judge Whalen), or the Ninth Circuit for much of the delay. Judge Whalen ordered her extradited, and Judge Milan Smith not only (rightly) affirms, but also cranks out the published opinion fairly quickly -- a couple months after oral argument.

Anyway, I thought that seemingly routine extraditions didn't take this long. Apparently, sometimes, they do. (And I'm not persuaded, by the way, that the delay here was because there's a huge dispute about whether "Christina Manta" -- the person the U.S. is trying to extradite -- is really Crystalla Kyriakidou. I think that Judge Smith is totally right that there's quite a bit of evidence that she is.)

Full post as published by California Appellate Report on March 11, 2008 (boomark / email).