USA California Rejects Extradition Request from Louisiana Over Abortion Doctor

[Webster]

(The Guardian) California governor Gavin Newsom rejected Louisiana’s request to extradite a California physician for allegedy providing medication abortion to a patient in Louisiana.

“We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services. Not today. Not ever. We will never be complicit with Trump’s war on women,” Newsom said in a statement.

Lousiana’s extradition request follows an effort by Texas to sue a New York-based doctor in late 2024 for allegedly mailing abortion pills into the anti-abortion state.

Louisiana officials seek to extradite abortion provider from California

Louisiana law enforcement officials allege California doctor mailed abortion pills to a woman in the southern state

www.theguardian.com

 

[Frankj]

I did a brief look at case law regarding the mailing of abortion drugs through the mail from a legal state to an illegal state and there is very little to go on at this time, eventually the Federal courts (through interstate commerce laws) will have to rule on this.

But I would think that a doctor in one state doing something legal there would be immune to being prosected by another state because he would be doing something against that states laws.

Some interesting legal reasoning and law will eventually result from this.

 

[Webster]

I did a brief look at case law regarding the mailing of abortion drugs through the mail from a legal state to an illegal state and there is very little to go on at this time, eventually the Federal courts (through interstate commerce laws) will have to rule on this.

But I would think that a doctor in one state doing something legal there would be immune to being prosected by another state because he would be doing something against that states laws.

Some interesting legal reasoning and law will eventually result from this.

This is one of those cases where the law and politics will most certainly intertwine (what crime novelist Michael Connelly calls "high jingo").

The problem is that, while states are free to pass their own laws on abortion, the Full Faith & Credit Clause of the Constitution and the Extradition Clause of the Constitution limit what states can do. On the former, states are generally required to recognize laws, actions, licenses, etc. from other states notwithstanding their own laws. (This is why, for instance, a smae-sex couple can get a marriage license, for instance, in a state pre-Obergefell, where it was legal and then move to another state where it was either banned or illegal). In this case, states are generally required to recognize extradition requests from one state concerning an individual's criminal acts in the extraditing state (in this case, Louisiana).

On the latter, all but two states have generalized their extradition procedures and under the Extradition Clause are supposed to honor said requests from other states; in this case, California has cited its' abortion shield law (as NY did months back in another case from Louisiana) in rejecting said request. Unfortunately, the Constitution's Supremacy Clause makes it clear - federal law supersedes state law and under Dobbs', states are free to decide the question of abortion for themselves.

In this case Louisiana has declared that abortion pills are controlled substances and the doctor in this case mailed said drugs to a patient in Louisiana in violation of La. state law., At some point I suspect the High Court (SCOTUS) will see this case or a similar one; for one, this is where we are at Frank.

 

[Frankj]

This is one of those cases where the law and politics will most certainly intertwine (what crime novelist Michael Connelly calls "high jingo").

The problem is that, while states are free to pass their own laws on abortion, the Full Faith & Credit Clause of the Constitution and the Extradition Clause of the Constitution limit what states can do. On the former, states are generally required to recognize laws, actions, licenses, etc. from other states notwithstanding their own laws. (This is why, for instance, a smae-sex couple can get a marriage license, for instance, in a state pre-Obergefell, where it was legal and then move to another state where it was either banned or illegal). In this case, states are generally required to recognize extradition requests from one state concerning an individual's criminal acts in the extraditing state (in this case, Louisiana).

On the latter, all but two states have generalized their extradition procedures and under the Extradition Clause are supposed to honor said requests from other states; in this case, California has cited its' abortion shield law (as NY did months back in another case from Louisiana) in rejecting said request. Unfortunately, the Constitution's Supremacy Clause makes it clear - federal law supersedes state law and under Dobbs', states are free to decide the question of abortion for themselves.

In this case Louisiana has declared that abortion pills are controlled substances and the doctor in this case mailed said drugs to a patient in Louisiana in violation of La. state law., At some point I suspect the High Court (SCOTUS) will see this case or a similar one; for one, this is where we are at Frank.

It's going to be interesting, and I don't see any decisions coming from it being narrowly constructed sufficiently to limit it to this case only, or to abortion only.

I'm remembering the days just after prohibition when the States decided for themselves whether to be wet or dry states (whether alcohol could be sold and possessed within them) and some States even having that decision made at the county level where there were wet and dry counties within the State.