MAN CHARGED WITH SELLING $10 OF POT IN '73 SEEKS ASYLUM

A mortgage company owner from Detroit who has lived crime-free in
Michigan for 24 years is fighting extradition to Virginia on charges
that he sold $10 worth of marijuana there in 1973.

Alfred Martin had thought he was safe in Michigan.

In 1974, he walked away from a prison farm in Martinsville, Va., two
days after starting his 10-year prison sentence, and moved his family
to New York and then Michigan. In 1976, then-Gov. William Milliken
effectively granted him legal asylum in Michigan by refusing to
extradite him to Virginia to face the rest of his sentence and new
escape charges.

But on Wednesday, Martin, 49, was pulled over in Livonia for having
expired plates, and the officer found the old Virginia warrants in the
computer. Since 1976, several court rulings have changed extradition
laws, preventing a governor from blocking an extradition.

Martin spent two nights in jail and appeared in jail greens Friday
before Circuit Judge William Cahalan, alongside confessed heroin
addicts and burglary suspects.

Cahalan released Martin on a $15,000 cash bond pending another hearing
Dec. 7. The judge said he doesn't believe Martin will flee. "Such a
lengthy time has gone by, and he's demonstrated himself to be a
responsible citizen," Cahalan said.

Guy Dobbs, Martin's lawyer, told Cahalan that Martin has been married
for 26 years, has held various jobs, owns Common Wealth Mortgage of
Livonia, has no criminal convictions, and has raised three children.
He lives in Detroit's Rosedale Park and his wife, Ann, is a secretary
for the Detroit Board of Education.

John Truscott, spokesman for Gov. John Engler, said the governor has
no choice but to sign an extradition warrant to send Martin back to
Virginia. "There's nothing we can do," Truscott said Friday. "That's
the law."

Engler should know: In 1994, he refused to extradite a convicted
Alabama murderer who had escaped from prison after serving 10 years of
a life sentence and built a new life in Michigan. Phillip Chance had
won public support from civil-rights groups, and said he feared for
his life if he were to return to prison in Alabama. But in 1996, a
federal appeals court ruled that Engler could not refuse a legitimate
extradition request, and Chance was sent back to Alabama.

Now, Martin faces the same. "It's such an injustice that we have to
deal with this all over again 22 years later," his wife said. "We
thought this was all behind us."

Martin was arrested in June 1973 for selling two small packages of
marijuana to a fellow employee at a department store in Martinsville.
Martin said in 1976 that he pleaded guilty to the charge because his
lawyer advised him that as a black man accused of selling drugs to a
white woman he wouldn't do well in front of a jury in the small,
mostly white town.

Martinsville's prosecutor told the Free Press on Friday she will fight
to make sure Martin comes back to serve his time.

"I'm a black female, and I'll certainly treat him like I'd treat
anybody else," said Joan Ziglar, Commonwealth's attorney for
Martinsville. "If we encourage every criminal who walks away to never
come back, we'll be in big trouble. I feel very strongly that if
someone is convicted in a court of law and chooses to walk away, they
should be brought back to answer for that. He doesn't have a right to
decide on his own what justice is."

Dobbs, Martin's lawyer, said he plans to ask the governor of Virginia
for a pardon or to recall the warrant. It will likely take at least

three weeks before the extradition request reaches the governor, said
Lila Young, spokeswoman for Gov. Jim Gilmore.

Besides the marijuana and escape charges, Ziglar said, Martin still
had to answer for felony charges of larceny by conversion because he
never paid off a television and stereo system he had purchased on an
installment plan from a Martinsville store. Because he escaped, the
store couldn't locate him or the items and filed felony charges
against him.

Martin's previous extradition battle started in 1974, when he was
stopped in Livonia for making an illegal turn. A check of his driver's
license showed he was wanted in Virginia. A lawyer worked for two
years to try to keep Martin from being sent back.

Among his supporters then were Sen. Carl Levin, a Detroit City Council
member at the time, and U.S. Rep. John Conyers. Milliken granted
Martin legal asylum in Michigan the day before Christmas, 1976.

Since then, Martin had heard nothing further about the case but always
knew there was a risk of being arrested on the Virginia warrants if he
left Michigan, said Gregory Neidle, another Martin lawyer.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady