Governors are often said to be constitutionally obligated to honor extradition requests, with only narrow exceptions. But that framing misses the purpose of extradition: interstate cooperation only when the underlying charge is lawful, constitutional, and not a political abuse of power.
Recent refusals show why that discretion matters. On January 14, 2026, California Governor Gavin Newsom rejected Louisiana’s extradition request for a California doctor accused of mailing abortion pills. In 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis refused to assist in extraditing Donald Trump to New York over hush-money charges, calling the prosecution “un-American.” In both cases, the governors recognized the same problem: states should not be compelled to enforce prosecutions that contradict constitutional protections or weaponize the criminal process.
Refusing extradition in such cases is not lawlessness. It is federalism functioning as intended.
Indie Guns owner Lawrence Michael DeStefano was picked up from Florida’s Orange County Jail by New York detectives this week after serving nearly 90 days in custody and flown to New York City aboard a private jet.
When they landed, the officers took a group photo and then rushed DeStefano to an NYPD precinct to be booked, and then to a quick court hearing in Queens. Afterward, he was taken to Rikers Island, a notorious 413-acre state prison located in the East River near the Bronx, where he remains incarcerated.
At the court hearing, a New York State prosecutor tried to portray him as an “evil gun runner,” DeStefano said, but the judge cut her off.
“The judge looked at her and said, ‘I have a 65-year-old man with no criminal record and you’re saying all these bad things about him.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘You’ve got some real serious charges against you. If you’ve got somewhere to stay, I will let you out on bail,’” DeStefano said over a jail phone Friday morning. “This is going to be a fight and the gloves are off. I am going balls-to-the-wall on this. It’s going to get ugly.”
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By Lee Williams

