Wait, can they do that?!
You might have asked that question upon hearing that the U.S. took Nicolas Maduro by force from Venezuela over the weekend to face criminal charges in New York.
But while international law was the focus at the United Nations on Monday, the circumstances surrounding the Venezuelan leader’s capture probably won’t stop his criminal case from moving forward.
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday in Manhattan, while claiming he’s still the president of the country that President Donald Trump said the U.S. would “run.” In the indictment alleging drug and weapons charges, federal prosecutors called Maduro “the de facto but illegitimate ruler of the country.” His wife, Cilia Flores, also was charged and pleaded not guilty.
Maduro is likely to raise several arguments to attempt to get his charges dismissed before trial.
If one of them involves his capture, it’s worth keeping in mind that the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that a Mexican man abducted from that country to the U.S. couldn’t avoid charges by arguing that he was taken in violation of an extradition treaty between the two countries. While conceding that the abduction may have been “shocking” and in violation of the principles of international law, the high court said that didn’t preclude his trial in a U.S. court for violations of U.S. law. The case, called United States v. Alvarez-Machain, was decided 6-3, with the only justice still on the court today being Clarence Thomas, who was in the majority. A federal appeals court cited the Alvarez-Machain precedent in 1997 when it affirmed the convictions of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, whose prosecution in the U.S. bears similarities to Maduro’s. It’s against that backdrop that Maduro would be challenging the validity of his U.S. appearance. But he might be stuck fighting the charges with other arguments besides how he got here. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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