EUGENE, Ore. — A 70-year-old Oregon man has been ordered to return to California to finish serving a life sentence for murder 27 years after Oregon's governor freed him from prison.
Lane County Circuit Judge Bryan P. Hodges ruled Wednesday that Robert Lee Burns was a fugitive, despite arguments that California failed to follow up on extradition in 1982 and 1983 when Burns was arrested on a California fugitive warrant in Nevada and Alaska.
Burns, suffering from heart disease and cancer, said he will appeal the ruling. A hearing to block extradition was tentatively set for Friday.
Burns was sentenced to life in 1964 after one of his partners in a Sacramento, Calif., bank robbery killed a highway patrolman. After being transferred to Oregon to serve the remainder of his robbery sentence, he was deemed rehabilitated. Then-Gov. Robert Straub refused to send him back to California.
Since then, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling eliminated the right of governors to grant sanctuary. Burns was arrested Jan. 4.