The extradition of a man accused of killing a woman in Manhattan and fleeing to Arizona, where he was later arrested on charges related to other serious crimes, set off a furious confrontation this week between two prominent local prosecutors.
It began Wednesday when Rachel Mitchell, the Republican county attorney for Maricopa County, Ariz., 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, Manhattan’s Democratic district attorney, could not be trusted to keep Mr. Almansoori behind bars. Mr. Bragg, she said, is too lenient on “violent criminals.”
The case was swiftly swept up into national politics, where both prosecutors have played major roles, prompting a volley of bitter cross-country exchanges.
In a radio interview Thursday, Ms. Mitchell criticized Mr. Bragg’s handling of 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 jail.
Ms. Mitchell claimed that the four suspects who were initially released had fled to Arizona and were picked up in her county.
When asked whether she believed New York would release Mr. Almansoori, Ms. Mitchell said: “I would have assumed that they wouldn’t let illegal immigrants who attack police go, but they did.”
Mr. Bragg called a news conference on Thursday to address Ms. Mitchell’s remarks. The district attorney, known for his measured demeanor, was perturbed. He focused on Ms. Mitchell’s assertion that some of the Times Square suspects had been found in her state.
Mr. Bragg told reporters that this claim had “demonstrably been proven to be false now for weeks.” Local and federal law enforcement agencies found that the men picked up 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 “professes concern that a murder suspect in Manhattan would be released,” Mr. Bragg said. “I do not know what they do in Arizona. But I know that here in this county, New York County, we routinely seek and get remands to put a person in custody in our murder cases.”
In New York, defendants charged with murder are not eligible for bail under state law. And in offenses where bail can be set, a judge — not the district attorney — has the final say.
Here is what to know about the extradition controversy:
What is extradition?
A person who is accused of a crime and flees to another state must be returned to the state where the crime was committed, according to the U.S. Constitution.
This process is known as extradition. How it plays out becomes complicated if a person is accused of committing serious crimes in multiple states, as in the case of the New York suspect, Mr. Almansoori.
Mr. Almansoori, 26, is accused of bludgeoning Denisse Oleas-Arancibia, 38, in the head with an iron in a hotel this month. Authorities say he then fled to Arizona, where on Feb. 17 he carjacked a vehicle 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, Ariz., and stabbed her. He was arrested in Scottsdale, Ariz., while driving a stolen car.
In most cases, a person suspected in a murder would be extradited to the state where the killing took place. However, Mr. Almansoori is also accused in the two stabbings in Arizona.
Arizona has the right to try a suspect before extradition, said Catherine Leisch, a former prosecutor in Maricopa County 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’ll dismiss it and send him back to New York,’” said Ms. Leisch.
The stabbings complicate the matter, she said, adding: “If you have an attack with a deadly weapon, that’s a prison case. What Maricopa County would always say, to any other state that had charges: ‘We need to try him in our cases, or get him pleaded and sentenced, and he will be returned.’”
If Mr. Almansoori were immediately extradited to New York, it might be difficult to prosecute him in Arizona later, Ms. Leisch said. “That’s a very bad look,” she added.
Who has the power?
Ms. Leisch said that the final decision on Mr. Almansoori’s extradition rested with Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona — not Ms. Mitchell. The federal Uniform Criminal Extradition Act gives governors the power to determine where Mr. Almansoori should first face charges.
Ms. Mitchell “has no legal authority whatsoever to refuse an extradition request,” Ms. Leisch added. “To give people the impression that you do when you don’t is misleading, whether intentional or not.”
Diane Peress, an adjunct processor at 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 very few grounds where the state holding the person can refuse to return a person,” she said. The next step in the process, Ms. Peress said, is for the Manhattan district attorney to compile an extensive collection of documents and send them to the governor’s office.
“This is headed to Governor Hochul, who will then issue a governor’s warrant,” Ms. Peress said.
The process could be further delayed for several reasons. “If Arizona is charging this guy with a crime, they could say you have to wait,” Ms. Peress said. “Take a number.”
“But how they are going to use this argument against Bragg, because of what they view are liberal policies on lower-level crimes, is ridiculous,” she added. “We’re talking about murder here.”
Neither governor’s office replied 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 American 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 New York attorney general. He was born and raised in Harlem and 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 of Arizona State University and a percussionist for her church orchestra, according to a biography on the county attorney’s website. She built a reputation as a sex crimes prosecutor, pursuing cases like sexual assault and child molestation, while also lobbying for tougher laws governing such crimes.
Ms. Mitchell was tapped by Republicans in 2018 to play a key role in the appointment of one of Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, Brett M. Kavanaugh. That year, she gained national attention for her questioning of Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Justice Kavanaugh of sexual assault years ago, during his confirmation hearings.
Ms. Mitchell became the top prosecutor in Maricopa County during a special election in 2022. “Public safety isn’t partisan,” she said on Facebook after her win. She is running for re-election.