152
Opinion of the Court
Bozeman was convicted, and the trial court subsequently denied Bozeman's motion for dismissal. It wrote that it "made much sense to bring" Bozeman "into the county briefly" to deal with "short pre-trial matters" and then to "return him to the surroundings to which he was accustomed." App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a. Doing so furthered Bozeman's "interest in maintaining . . . rehabilitation available to him in federal prison." Ibid. In the trial judge's view, Bozeman "certainly would not [have] receive[d] much rehabilitation in a county jail." Ibid. Consequently, the judge concluded, the January transfer was "wholly consistent with" the Agreement's goal, "to expedite the prosecution of state charges without interfering with any rehabilitative programs of the federal government." Id., at 29a.
An intermediate State Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. 738 So. 2d 934 (1998). But the Alabama State Supreme Court reversed by a 5-to-3 vote. 781 So. 2d 165 (2000). In its view, the literal language of the Agreement controlled and required dismissal of the state charges. The dissenters argued that the Agreement violation was merely "technical," and consequently did not require dismissal. Id., at 170. The State petitioned for certiorari. In light of differences among the lower courts, we granted the writ. Compare, e. g., United States v. Schrum, 638 F. 2d 214, 215 (CA10 1981) (per curiam) (adopting District Court's literal interpretation of Agreement), with United States v. Daniels, 3 F. 3d 25, 27-28 (CA1 1993) (rejecting literal interpretation of Agreement). And we now affirm the Alabama Supreme Court's decision.
II
Alabama does not deny a violation of Article IV(e) as literally interpreted, for it concedes that its officials "returned" Bozeman to his "original place of imprisonment," before Bozeman's county court "trial" was "had." Nor does Alabama claim that Bozeman waived the right to trial before return that Article IV provides. See Reply Brief for Peti-
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