Cite as: 533 U. S. 146 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
cles deal with subsidiary matters, not relevant here with one exception: Article IX provides that the "agreement shall be liberally construed so as to effectuate its purposes."
For present purposes, it is important to keep in mind that the Agreement basically (1) gives a prisoner the right to demand a trial within 180 days; and (2) gives a State the right to obtain a prisoner for purposes of trial, in which case the State (a) must try the prisoner within 120 days of his arrival, and (b) must not return the prisoner to his "original place of imprisonment" prior to that trial.
B
In January 1997, respondent Michael Bozeman was serving a sentence of imprisonment for a federal drug crime in federal prison in Marianna, Florida. At the beginning of that month, the district attorney of Covington County, Alabama, who had earlier lodged a detainer against Bozeman in connection with charges related to discharging firearms, sought temporary custody in order to arraign Bozeman on those firearms charges and secure the appointment of counsel. On January 23, federal authorities released Bozeman to local officials. Those officials took him to Covington County, about 80 miles from the federal prison, where he arrived later in the day. Bozeman spent the night in the county jail, appeared in local court the next morning, obtained local appointed counsel, and was transported back to federal prison that evening. About one month later, Bozeman was brought back to Covington County for trial.
At that time, Bozeman's local counsel filed a motion to dismiss the state charges on the ground that in January Bozeman had been "returned to the original place of imprisonment" (namely, the federal prison) "prior to" "trial" on state charges being "had." See App. 37-42. Consequently, he argued, under Article IV(e) the state charges were without "any further force or effect," and the local court had to "enter an order dismissing the same with prejudice."
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