EXTRADITION is the surrender of a criminal who has escaped from a territory un der one government and taken refuge in a terri tory under another government. Extradition has two specific meanings in the United States. In the first place it refers to the surrender by one State government of a criminal who seeks asylum from another State of the Union in which he is held to be guilty of a heinous crime. (See EXTRADITION, INTERSTATE). In the second place, it refers to the surrender of a criminal by one nation to another. The demand for ex tradition made by one nation of another is a matter of international law, and implies merely the control to be exercised by one nation over the right of affording asylum claimed by an other. The Jay Treaty of 19 Nov. 1794 with Great Britain specified for powers of extradition during a period of 12 years. After its expira tion in 1807 no provisions for international ex tradition were renewed until 1842 when the Ashburton treaty of 9 August of that year with Great Britain was concluded, in which extradi table offenses were enumerated. France on 9 November was the next country to enter into a treaty of extradition with the United States, since when treaties have been arranged with some 24 foreign governments providing for the mutual extradition of criminals, fugitives from justice, charged with heinous crimes, among which are enumerated robbery, burglary, arson, rape, embezzlement and the making and cir culation of counterfeit money. In order to justify a claim for extradition, it is necessary to establish that the supreme political authority in the country where the crime has been com mitted has made a demand for the criminal's surrender; that an inquiry has been made into the facts of the case by a judge or United States commissioner, under direction of the President, in cases where the demand comes to the United States government from abroad; that a complaint be made on oath before the judge or commissioner; that a warrant be Issuedby the judge or commissioner for the apprehension of the party charged; that the charge be sup ported by suitable evidence; that a certificate be sent to the President of the United States signed by the commissioner, and stating that the charges are sufficiently well grounded to warrant a surrender; that such certificate so satisfy the President that he grant the writ of surrender.
The British extradition act of 1870 makes special provision that no criminal shall be sur rendered for a political offense, and that the criminal shall not be tried for any but the crime of which he was demanded. In 1890 an ex tradition treaty was ratified between Great Bri tain and the United States extending somewhat the list of extraditable offenses in the direction of the commercial crimes of fraud and em bezzlement. Consult Moore's on Ex tradition and Interstate Rendition' (1891) ; Clark, E., upon the Law of Extradi tion' (1904) ; Biron and Chambers, Prac tice of Extradition' (1903) ; Hawley, state Extraditions' (1890) ; Spear, of Ex traditions, International and Interstate> (1884).