What you need to know about the feud between two prosecutors over a murder suspect
The extradition of a man accused of killing a woman in Manhattan and fleeing to Arizona, where he was later arrested on charges of other serious crimes, led to an angry confrontation this week between two prominent local prosecutors.
It started Wednesday when Rachel Mitchell, the Republican attorney for Maricopa County, Arizona, said at a news conference that she would not send the man, Raad Almansoori, back to New York to face murder charges. The reason, she said, was that Alvin L. Bragg, the Democratic district attorney of Manhattan, could not be trusted to keep Mr. Almansoori behind bars. Mr. Bragg, she said, is too lenient toward “violent criminals.”
The case quickly entered national politics, where both prosecutors played key roles, leading to a series of bitter exchanges between the countries.
In a radio interview Thursday, Ms. Mitchell criticized the way Mr. Bragg handled a case involving seven migrants arrested in New York City and charged with assaulting two police officers in Times Square last month. Four were initially released before appearing in court. All seven are now in prison.
Ms. Mitchell alleged that the four suspects who were initially released fled to Arizona and were captured in her county.
Asked whether she believed New York would release Mr. Almansoori, Ms. Mitchell said: “I had assumed they wouldn’t let illegal immigrants who attack police go, but they did.”
Mr Bragg called a press conference on Thursday to address Ms Mitchell’s comments. The prosecutor, known for his measured behavior, was alarmed. He focused on Ms. Mitchell’s claim that some of the Times Square suspects were found in her state.
Mr. Bragg told reporters that this claim “has been demonstrably false for weeks.” Local and federal law enforcement agencies found that the men arrested in Arizona had different names, dates of birth and fingerprints than the migrants accused of attacking the officers, and they were not charged in the New York case.
Ms. Mitchell “admits to being concerned that a murder suspect in Manhattan would be released,” Mr. Bragg said. “I don’t know what they do in Arizona. But I know that here in this county, New York County, we routinely seek and obtain pretrial detention to take someone into custody in our homicide cases.
In New York, suspects charged with murder are not eligible for bail under state law. And for offenses where bail can be imposed, a judge – and not the public prosecutor – has the final say.
Here’s what you need to know about the extradition controversy:
What is extradition?
A person accused of a crime who flees to another state must be returned to the state where the crime was committed, according to the US Constitution.
This process is known as extradition. How it plays out becomes complicated when someone is accused of committing serious crimes in multiple states, as in the case of New York suspect Mr. Almansoori.
Mr Almansoori, 26, is accused of hitting Denisse Oleas-Arancibia, 38, in the head with an iron at a hotel this month. Authorities say he then fled to Arizona, where on Feb. 17 he carjacked a car in Phoenix, stabbed a woman who was driving and fled again. The next day, law enforcement officials said, Mr. Almansoori dragged a woman into the bathroom of a McDonald’s in Surprise, Arizona, and stabbed her. He was arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona, while driving a stolen car.
In most cases, a person suspected of a murder would be extradited to the state where the murder occurred. However, Mr. Almansoori is also accused of the two stabbings in Arizona.
Arizona has the right to try a suspect before extradition, says Catherine Leisch, a former Maricopa County prosecutor who has specialized in interstate and international extraditions for two decades.
“If the charge in Arizona were something like shoplifting or some other minor crime, Arizona would say, ‘We don’t care. We will reject it and send him back to New York,” Ms. Leisch said.
The stabbings complicate the case, she said, adding: “If you have an assault with a deadly weapon, that’s a prison issue. What Maricopa County would always say to any other state that had an indictment: “We must try him in our cases, or let him plead and be convicted, and he will be sent back.”
If Mr. Almansoori were extradited to New York immediately, it could be difficult to prosecute him later in Arizona, Ms. Leisch said. “That looks really bad,” she added.
Who has the power?
Ms. Leisch said the final decision on Mr. Almansoori’s extradition rests with Governor Kathy Hochul of New York and Governor Katie Hobbs of Arizona — and not Ms. Mitchell. The federal one Uniform Criminal Extradition Act gives governors the power to determine where Mr Almansoori should first be charged.
Ms. Mitchell “does not have any legal authority to refuse an extradition request,” Ms. Leisch added. “Giving people the impression that you do that when you don’t is misleading, whether intentional or not.”
Diane Peress, a deputy processor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former white-collar crime prosecutor on Long Island, handled extraditions in New York for years.
“There are few grounds on which the state detaining the person can refuse to return someone,” she said. The next step in the process, Ms. Peress said, is for the Manhattan district attorney to compile a comprehensive collection of documents and send them to the governor’s office.
“This will go to Governor Hochul, who will then issue a governor’s order,” Ms Peress said.
The process may be further delayed for several reasons. “If Arizona charges this man with a crime, they can tell you to wait,” Ms. Peress said. ‘Take a number.’
“But how they’re going to use this argument against Bragg, because of what they consider liberal policies on lower-level crimes, is ridiculous,” she added. “We are talking about murder here.”
Neither governor responded to a request for comment on the case.
Who are Alvin Bragg and Rachel Mitchell?
Mr. Bragg last year became the first prosecutor to bring a criminal case against a current or former U.S. president when a grand jury indicted Donald J. Trump. The district attorney has long been a magnet for Republican attacks.
Mr. Bragg, who was elected in November 2021, is a former federal prosecutor and Deputy Attorney General of New York. Born and raised in Harlem, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate and then Harvard Law School. He is the first Black person to lead the district attorney’s office.
Ms. Mitchell is an Arizona native, a law graduate from Arizona State University and a percussionist for her church orchestra, according to a biography on the district police officer’s website. She built a reputation as a sex crimes prosecutor, prosecuting cases such as sexual assault and child abuse, while also lobbying for stricter laws governing such crimes.
Ms. Mitchell was tapped by Republicans in 2018 to play a key role in the nomination of one of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, Brett M. Kavanaugh. That year she received national attention for her Interrogate of Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault during his confirmation hearings years ago.
Ms. Mitchell became the top prosecutor in Maricopa County in a special election in 2022. “Public safety is not partisan,” she said on Facebook after her victory. She is running for re-election.