How does your county fund extraditions of felons from out of state? Our office has a line-item in its DA budget. I'm looking for ideas on cutting the cost of extradition and perhaps seeking establishment of a statewide fund or agency to handle the cases.

Sounds like a special session request to me. There is a red dispenser outside the capital. Take a number, and your special session will be called in order of appearance.

That's an interesting question. I would have figured that the State picked that up like they do witness travel.

We leave that one up to the Sheriff's Department and their budgets. Since they do all the transport of prisoners, we pass it on to them. They, in turn, hand a bill to the bondsman if there is one to be found.

If the case ends up being probation of course we add repayment of extradition costs as a condition. But I think John is talking about real money as opposed to a felon's promise.

Ours is in the sheriff's budget as well.

John, have y'all used any of the transportation services that are available? I know we use them from some areas and not from others. I don't know how much we really save, but the manpower savings is certainly helpful since our transport guys are spread pretty thin as we have to regularly move prisoners back and forth between our jail and the 3 other counties who are nice enough to rent us bed space.

What transportation services are you saying are available?

There are private business operations that contract to transport prisoners from out of state to the jail. We use them regularly. It takes a little longer to get them back this way, usually about ten days or so. It also can be more expensive depending upon how far away the prisoner is jailed. Our sheriffs use them to avoid the problems of having to send one or two deputies on a long trip for two or three days. The cost probably works out in the end when you consider all the consequential expense of taking the deputy away from regular business. Cost comes out of the sheriff's budget. I don't have the names or numbers of the transport companies since the sheriff schedules these but could get them if you need them.

OK, I'll ask this question a different way. Does anyone find that extraditions are not happening (meaning you have found a wanted felon but don't go get him or her) for lack of funds? If so, how are you making that decision?

My Sheriff's office uses Transcor, a private service for transporting out of state prisoners. We will extradite State Jail felons only from states that are contiguous to Texas. NCIC allows such an entry. With that condition we have not had any problems.

Money is always a concern in my small county. The Sheriff will always call me on a proposed extradition, and I will review the file to make sure we still have witnesses, etc. Sometimes I will call the prosecutor in the other state to see what punishment might be available if the defendant has a case in the other state. If he is getting a prison sentence there, I generally decline to extradite. If it is an MRP with no new "law" allegations and the defendant has moved to the new state, we sometimes decline since it is good money after bad.