[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6698 Introduced in House (IH)]

112th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 6698

  To direct the President to submit to Congress a report on fugitives 
 currently residing in other countries whose extradition is sought by 
                 the United States and related matters.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           December 20, 2012

   Mr. Smith of New Jersey introduced the following bill; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To direct the President to submit to Congress a report on fugitives 
 currently residing in other countries whose extradition is sought by 
                 the United States and related matters.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Walter Patterson Justice and 
Extradition Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Extradition is the formal surrender of a person by one 
        State to another State for prosecution or punishment.
            (2) Refusal by other nations to extradite to the United 
        States fugitives within their jurisdiction who have been 
        convicted of committing crimes on United States soil impedes 
        the judicial process and undermines the rule of law.
            (3) The United States has bilateral extradition treaties 
        with more than 100 nations and an extradition agreement with 
        the European Union.
            (4) Principle X of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act requires 
        that the 57 Organization for Security and Co-operation in 
        Europe participating States, ``fulfill in good faith their 
        obligations under international law, both those obligations 
        arising from the generally recognized principles and rules of 
        international law and those obligations arising from treaties 
        or other agreements, in conformity with international law, to 
        which they are parties''.
            (5) The failure to bring criminal fugitives to justice in 
        the United States is an affront to the victims of those crimes.
            (6) The refusal of Portugal, a close ally and good friend 
        of the United States, to extradite George Wright, convicted of 
        the 1962 murder of Walter Patterson, fugitive from justice 
        since his 1970 escape from the Bayside State Prison in New 
        Jersey, is a deplorable example of a failure to extradite.
            (7) The refusal to extradite George Wright is emblematic of 
        a number of such refusals from American friends and allies, 
        such that United States policies and efforts to secure 
        extradition and the extradition policies of countries from 
        which the United States seeks extradition bear further 
        examination.
            (8) Such examination will be promoted by the issuance of a 
        public report on the status of extradition requests by the 
        United States and related matters.

SEC. 3. REPORT.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 270 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to the appropriate 
congressional committees a report on--
            (1) the number of fugitives currently residing in other 
        countries whose extradition is sought by the United States and 
        a list of those countries;
            (2) diplomatic and other efforts, if any, the United States 
        has undertaken to secure the return of such fugitives;
            (3) the average length of time these cases have been 
        outstanding;
            (4) how many of these cases have been resolved to the 
        satisfaction of the United States;
            (5) factors that have been barriers to the resolution of 
        these cases; and
            (6) information on the number of United States citizens 
        whose extradition has been sought by other countries during the 
        past 5 years, a list of those countries seeking extradition, 
        and the outcomes of those requests.
    (b) Form.--The report required by subsection (a) shall be submitted 
in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex if necessary.
    (c) Definition.--In this section, the term ``appropriate 
congressional committees'' means--
            (1) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on 
        the Judiciary of the House of Representatives; and
            (2) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on 
        the Judiciary of the Senate.
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