Mr. Bayard to Mr. Romero.
Washington, December 11, 1888.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 8th instant, in response to my note of the 27th ultimo, in which, replying to your request of the preceding day for the extradition of one Rafael Treviño on a charge of embezzlement in Mexico, I stated that when the conditions required by the treaty between the United States and Mexico, of December 11, 1861, and by the laws of the United States in relation to extradition should have been complied with, a warrant for the surrender of the fugitive would be granted.
In your note of the 8th instant you inform me that the Mexican Government considers that under the treaty in question it is only obliged to present diplomatically an application for extradition, together with the evidence of the commission of the crime, and that if the Executive Department of the United States desires a judicial investigation of the case as a basis for its decision, it should apply to the courts and not the Government requesting the extradition.
I find myself unable to concur in the construction of the treaty above stated. With the exception of the special provisions for the surrender of fugitives by the chief civil authority of frontier States and Territories of the contracting parties, I am not aware that the course of proceedings in the United States under the extradition treaty with Mexico differs, in respect to resort to the judicial tribunals, from that uniformly pursued by other Governments under our laws for the execution of our conventions for the delivery of fugitive criminals.
In this relation I have the honor to advert to the correspondence that took place between this Department and the Mexican legation in December, 1886, in the case of Marcus F. Mayer, in which the Department’s views on details of procedure were fully stated and finally accepted.
Thinking that you may have use for the papers inclosed in your note of the 26th ultimo, I have the honor herewith to return them.
Accept, etc.,