Puerto Rico v. Branstad

In Puerto Rico v. Branstad, the Supreme Court determined that the Constitution granted federal courts the authority to compel an asylum state to fulfill its obligations under the Constitution's Extradition Clause and deliver fugitives for justice on demand. In doing so, it overturned Kentucky v. Dennison, one of the long-standing foundational cases for the principle of federalism--the balance of power between state and federal governments. Kentucky v. Dennison affirmed the principle that state and federal governments were always to be considered coequal. This, the Court declared in Puerto Rico v. Branstad, was "not representative of current law."

Kentucky v. Dennison dealt with the highly politicized issue of fugitive slaves in 1861. As the nation moved towards the Civil War, northern states refused to hand over fugitive slaves, while southern states refused to release free blacks captured and sold in the South. Kentucky v. Dennison was representative. The case involved a free African American man from Ohio, named William Lago, who helped a slave named Charlotte escape from Kentucky. Kentucky's governor tried to force Ohio's governor to extradite Lago. When both the Ohio governor and his successor refused on the grounds that Lago had committed no crime in Ohio, Kentucky's governor appealed in 1861 to the Supreme Court to issue a writ of mandamus ordering Ohio's governor, then William Dennison, to extradite Lago. The Supreme Court refused, ruling that, while conformity with the Constitution's Extradition Clause was mandatory, the federal courts had no authority to compel it.