Why Luigi Mangione's Extradition Challenge Will Fail

Full Faith And Credit, The Governor's Warrant, And Tommy Lee Jones

EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is a preview of the type of content subscribers will see on Media Room’s sister site, American Karma, when it launches January 2025.

In January, Media Room will be exclusively devoted to the arts. Essays related to history, current events, and the law like this one will be posted to American Karma.

All founding and paid subscribers to Media Room will become founding and paid subscribers of American Karma at no extra cost. This post is for founding and paid subscribers only.

Allow me to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for supporting my work.

I was a county prosecutor for a decade and routinely handled interstate and international extradition matters. Extraditions are procedurally complex but substantively pretty simple.

The Pennsylvania Court’s jurisdiction is very limited. The only issues before it are, essentially: (1) is the Luigi Mangione standing in the Pennsylvania Court the same Luigi Mangione wanted in New York?; (2) will New York come and get him?

Like Tommy Lee Jones in “The Fugitive,” it is not up to Pennsylvania to decide if Mangione committed a crime in New York.

Full Faith And Credit

Article IV of the Constitution is called the “Full Faith and Credit Clause” which means that each state must respect the laws of every other state.

So, if someone is charged with a crime in New York and flees to Pennsylvania then Pennsylvania must send them to New York to determine guilt.