Hearing on Alvarez-Machain Case Bodes Well for U.S. Government

On April 1, 1992, the oral argument in the Alvarez-Machain case seemed to turn the trend of the case in favor of the U.S. Government. The dialogue between Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia and Paul Hoffman, the attorney for the defendant Alvarez-Machain emphasized Scalia’s focus on the absence of clear prohibition in the extradition treaty on kidnapping and his implicit agreement with the position of the U.S. Government that the U.S. Government can resort to kidnapping and other ways of rendition that are not expressly forbidden in the extradition treaty…[more]