Editing Extradition (section)

=== Extradition to federations ===
The [[federation|federal]] structure of some countries, such as the [[United States]], can pose particular problems for extraditions when the [[Police power (United States constitutional law)|police power]] and the power of foreign relations are held at different levels of the federal hierarchy. For instance, in the United States, most criminal prosecutions occur at the state level, and most foreign relations occurs on the federal level.  In fact, under the [[United States Constitution]], foreign countries may not have official treaty relations with the individual states; rather, they may have treaty relations only with the federal government.  As a result, a US state that wishes to prosecute an individual located in foreign territory must direct its extradition request through the federal government, which will negotiate the extradition with the requested state.  However, due to the constraints of [[federalism]], any conditions on the extradition accepted by the federal government – such as not to impose the death penalty – are not binding on the states.  In the case of ''[[Soering v. United Kingdom]]'', the [[European Court of Human Rights]] ruled that the [[United Kingdom]] was not permitted under its treaty obligations to extradite an individual to the United States, because the United States' federal government was constitutionally unable to offer binding assurances that the death penalty would not be sought in [[Virginia]] state courts.  Ultimately, the Commonwealth of Virginia itself had to offer assurances to the federal government, which passed those assurances on to the United Kingdom, which then extradited the individual to the United States.

Less important problems can arise due to differing qualifications for crimes. For instance, in the United States, crossing state lines is a prerequisite for certain federal crimes (otherwise crimes such as murder, etc. are handled by state governments (except in certain circumstances such as the killing of a federal official){{Citation needed|date=March 2008}}. This transportation clause is, understandably, absent from the laws of many countries, however. Extradition treaties or subsequent diplomatic correspondence often include language providing that such criteria should not be taken into account when checking if the crime is one in the country from which extradition should apply.