Warren man inadvertently gets early extradition to Texas

The man’s attorney says he should be brought back to complete the extradition.

WARREN — The Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department inadvertently released a Warren man to Texas officials, who thought he was supposed to go to Texas to face murder charges.

The release has angered Gilbert Rucker, the attorney for Vincent Smith, 38, of Edgewood Drive Northeast.

But the prosecutor in the case says Smith’s release early Saturday allowed for a move that would have become official Monday morning.

Most of the procedures needed for extradition had been completed at the time Smith was released to a transport company at 12:22 a.m. Saturday, said Chris Becker, an assistant count prosecutor.

A governor’s warrant had been by the Texas governor to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, and Strickland had sent a governor’s warrant to the Trumbull County Jail.

Such procedures provide information such as fingerprints and other identifiers so that a judge can determine whether the person a state wants is the person in custody.

Becker said those procedures apparently convinced jail officials that Smith was ready to be extradited. But Judge W. Wyatt McKay in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court had not completed the process. Smith had refused to allow himself to be extradited voluntarily.

“The net effect is he was going to go anyway,” Becker said. “It’s no harm, no foul,” he said, adding that he doesn’t believe there is any reason for Smith to return to Ohio to complete the extradition process.

“This should not have happened,” Rucker said outside of the courtroom Monday.

“Justice demands that he be brought back,” he added. “He’s entitled to that — his due process rights. By releasing him early, they denied him that.”

Smith, who has a police record that includes convictions for cocaine possession, assault on a police officer and a weapons charge, was arrested on a warrant from Euless, Texas, charging him with killing a man in Euless in 1993.

Ernie Cook, chief deputy of the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department, said the mistake was made because most defendants do not fight extradition. Only once every year or two does someone fight it, so personnel were not familiar with the process.

Cook and Becker said a written policy will be put into effect by the end of the week to prevent such a mistake from occurring again.

runyan@vindy.com