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FOR IMMEDIATE NEWS RELEASE NEWS RELEASE # 41 FROM: CLERK OF SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA The Opinions handed down on the 30th day of April, 2004, are as follows: BY KIMBALL, J.: 2003-KK-2362 STATE OF LOUISIANA v. THOMAS BOBO (Parish of Ouachita) (Distribution of Heroin, Four Counts; Attempted Distribution of Heroin, One Count; Conspiracy to Distribute Heroin, One Count; Extradition) For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is therefore reversed, the motion to quash is ordered granted, and defendant is discharged from custody on the present charges. REVERSED. VICTORY, J., dissents and assigns reasons. TRAYLOR, J., dissents and assigns reasons. KNOLL, J., dissents for reasons assigned by Justice Traylor. WEIMER, J., additionally concurs with reasons.

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SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA 03-KK-2362 STATE OF LOUISIANA versus THOMAS BOBO ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL SECOND CIRCUIT, PARISH OF OUACHITA KIMBALL, JUSTICE In this extradition case, we are called on to determine whether a defendant's incarceration in another state interrupts the two-year prescriptive period provided by La. C.Cr.P. art. 578(2) for prosecution of felony charges in this state. Specifically, we must decide whether the State's failure to bring the defendant to trial within two years from the date of his indictment, when the defendant was incarcerated in Texas at the time of his Louisiana indictment and after the proper execution of extradition papers by Texas authorities, was because his "presence could not be obtained by legal process" or "due to events beyond its control," as provided for by La. C.Cr.P. art. 579. For the reasons that follow, we hold that the State has not met its burden of proving that an interruption of the applicable prescriptive period occurred. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY On December 2, 1998, the grand jury in Ouachita Parish indicted the defendant, Thomas Bobo, on four counts of distribution of heroin, one count of attempted distribution of heroin, and one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin. According to the affidavit in support of a warrant issued for Bobo's arrest on October 12, 1998, the charges stemmed from sales of heroin allegedly made by Bobo from his home in Stafford, Texas, in September and October 1998, by mail to a cooperating individual in Ouachita Parish. Bobo's arrest in Texas followed, and in June 1999 he began

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serving a sentence in the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville after conviction for possession of heroin arising out of the same series of transactions involved in the Ouachita Parish prosecution. In early April 2000, approximately 16 months after Bobo's indictment in Ouachita Parish, but still within the two-year time limit for trial, the District Attorney's Office in Ouachita Parish formally requested Governor Mike Foster to issue a demand for Bobo's extradition from Texas.1 The demand and supporting documents were prepared by the Louisiana Governor's Office on May 5, 2000, and were sent to Texas at the end of the month. Among the documents was an agreement for re-extradition of Bobo at the request of the executive authority of Texas in the event that Texas acceded to the demand for Bobo's extradition. On June 8, 2000, then-Governor George W. Bush signed a warrant for Bobo's arrest and extradition to Louisiana. On June 14, 2000, the Extradition Coordinator for the Texas Governor's Office informed the prison authorities at Huntsville, where Bobo remained confined, that the extradition warrant had issued and they were to execute it immediately. The letter explicitly instructed Huntsville to advise the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office "[w]hen all statutory requirements have been complied with and the defendant is ready to return to the demanding state . . ." On June 26, 2000, Huntsville informed the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office by letter that it would be "notified prior to the release of this subject so that you may have an officer here to take him/her into custody." The letter, on a pre-printed form, provided information with regard to Bobo's full term date and parole eligibility status, but made no mention of the extradition proceedings underway at the direction of the Texas Governor's Office. On July 28, 2000, having refused to waive extradition proceedings, Bobo

Louisiana and Texas are two of 46 states that participate in the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act. 2

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appeared in the district court of Walker County, Texas to challenge the authority of Louisiana over him. During those proceedings, Bobo's counsel conceded that the necessary paperwork for extradition appeared in order, but argued that his conviction in Texas for a crime arising out of the same series of transactions involved in Ouachita Parish prosecution collaterally estopped Louisiana from taking Bobo into custody. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court rejected Bobo's argument and ordered him remanded to Louisiana. See Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82, 106 S.Ct. 433 (1985) (dual sovereignty doctrine permits successive prosecution of defendant by two states for the same conduct). On October 12, 2000, that judgment was affirmed. Ex Parte Bobo, 14-00-010003 (Tex. App. 14th Cir. 10/12/02). However, Bobo was not returned to Louisiana until November 4, 2002, after he had completed his sentence in Texas at the end of October of that year and he waived extradition to Louisiana. On December 2, 2000, four years to the date on which he was indicted, and following his arraignment on the pending indictment, Bobo filed a motion to quash, in which he asserted that the prosecution against him had prescribed. On March 13, 2002, at the hearing conducted on the motion, the trial court took no testimony, but filed various documents relating to the prescription issue into the record. On May 5, 2003, the trial court issued a written judgment denying Bobo's motion on grounds that the State's initial effort to extradite him from Texas was sufficient to interrupt prescription until October 2002, because "[i]t was reasonable for this State, in reliance upon the assertion that it would be notified when the State of Texas was ready to release Defendant, to then wait until such notification was received . . . [T]he limitation period began to run anew when the Ouachita Parish Sheriff was notified by Texas authorities that Defendant would be released from custody of the State of Texas, thereby removing the cause of the interruption." Thus, the trial court agreed with the position of the State taken throughout these proceedings that having initiated
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an extradition demand through the Louisiana Governor's Office to the executive authority of Texas, it had no affirmative duty to inform itself of the outcome of those proceedings or to take any further action until Huntsville provided actual notice that Bobo was set for release from the penitentiary after serving his sentence there. Following the ruling of the trial court, Bobo timely filed an application for supervisory writs to the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal, which, relying on State v. Beverly, 448 So. 2d 792 (La. App. 2 Cir. 1984), declined to exercise its supervisory jurisdiction. State v. Bobo, 37,880, 37,881 (La. App. 2 Cir. 7/13/03), -So. 2d

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