But the Castro case begs a constitutional question: When a person is charged with a crime in one state and later found in another, when is the second state obligated to send that person back?

Minnesota says the answer is straightforward. Castro was charged in Minnesota, a Minnesota judge found probable cause and issued a warrant, and Castro was later arrested in Texas.

But Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has taken a different view, questioning whether Castro qualifies as a “fugitive from justice” under the Constitution’s extradition clause and arguing that Texas has the authority to examine the circumstances surrounding his return to the state before deciding whether to surrender him.

A federal judge ultimately declined to force Texas to extradite Castro and he walked free Thursday after 90 days in a Texas jail.

What happened to Castro?

Minnesota prosecutors allege Castro shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh while pursuing another man on Jan. 14. The bullet traveled through a door and struck Sosa-Celis in the leg before ultimately hitting a wall in a child’s room, according to the allegations. Castro was later charged in Minnesota with four counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

A Minnesota judge subsequently found probable cause supporting the charges and issued a nationwide warrant for Castro’s arrest.

Authorities with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension arrested Castro in Cameron County, Texas, on May 29. Following the arrest, Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz requested that Texas extradite him.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison framed the case as a basic question of equal treatment under the law.

“In Minnesota, we believe in equal justice under the law. That means nobody is above the law, including agents of the federal government,” Ellison said.

But Castro’s attorneys and Texas officials challenged that he should be treated as a fugitive who had fled Minnesota to escape prosecution.

According to his lawyer, Castro was in the Rio Grande Valley as part of his job obligations when he was arrested, challenging whether Castro actually “fled” Minnesota.

What does the Constitution say?

The answer begins with the extradition clause.

Article 4, Section 2 of the Constitution says that a person charged with a crime in one state who “shall flee from Justice” and is found in another state must, upon a demand from the state where the crime was allegedly committed, be delivered back. The provision was designed to prevent state borders from becoming a refuge from criminal prosecution.

In practice, extradition is handled by the governors of the states involved. The state where the person is wanted submits a request, and the governor of the state where the person is located considers whether to surrender him.

The process does not necessarily require the governor to accept the requesting state’s characterization of events without question.

Texas relied on a 1906 Supreme Court decision, Appleyard v. Massachusetts, in challenging whether Castro is legally a fugitive. In Appleyard, the Supreme Court held that if a person commits a crime in a state and then departs the state, they are considered a fugitive regardless if they believed they were guilty or not.

“The simple inquiry must be whether the person whose surrender is demanded is in fact a fugitive from justice, not whether he consciously fled from justice in order to avoid prosecution,” Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in Appleyard.

The precedent complicated one of Texas’s arguments: Even if Castro returned to Texas for work and not to avoid prosecution, he still can be considered a fugitive under the extradition clause.

But Texas argued that the governor still has a role in determining whether the constitutional requirements for extradition have been satisfied.

Why didn’t the federal judge order Texas to send him back?

Minnesota went to federal court seeking earlier this month to force Texas to act before Castro’s detention expired.

Under Texas law, a person arrested on an extradition request generally cannot remain jailed indefinitely while the governor considers whether to issue a rendition warrant. Minnesota argued that the 90-day limit under Texas law should serve as the deadline for Texas to act. Minnesota also raised concerns that Castro would flee to Mexico to avoid his charges if set free.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. concluded that federal law does not impose a 90-day deadline on a governor’s consideration of an extradition request. The court did not hold that Castro can’t be extradited; it decided that Minnesota was asking the federal court to intervene before Texas had completed the constitutional process assigned to its governor.

The judge wrote that the court could find no authority allowing it to create a deadline for a governor’s investigation under the extradition clause and federal Extradition Act.

Why does Texas say the governor gets to investigate?

Texas’s defense rests on an understanding that the requesting state cannot simply declare someone a fugitive and demand that the other state surrender him without allowing its governor to evaluate the request.

Texas argued that the Supreme Court has recognized this authority for more than a century. The state’s lawyers pointed to the Supreme Court’s 1885 decision in Roberts v. Reilly, which said the governor receiving an extradition request must determine, based on evidence he finds satisfactory, whether the person sought is actually a fugitive from the requesting state.

Texas argued that Abbott has a constitutional duty to consider the circumstances before issuing a rendition warrant.

The state also accused Minnesota of trying to short-circuit that process by asking a federal court to order Castro’s return before Abbott had made a decision.

“Now it takes the remarkable position that a requesting State may unilaterally declare someone to be a fugitive and that no other actor — not even the Governor who received the request — may consider real-world facts about how the individual concerned moved from the requesting State,” Texas lawyers wrote.

Texas’s lawyers argued that Abbott’s review should be afforded the same deference as his handling of other extradition requests.

Why has Abbott questioned the request?

The extradition dispute has also become entangled in the bitter political relationship between a red and blue state.

Abbott has questioned whether Castro was actually a fugitive because, according to his account, Castro returned to Texas for work rather than fleeing Minnesota to escape criminal prosecution.

Abbott also tied his reluctance to act to the fraud allegations involving federal programs in Minnesota.

“I don’t trust Tim Walz on anything, let alone something like this,” Abbott said last week, adding that he would not respond to Minnesota until the state acknowledged the fraud and repaid the federal government.

Minnesota has rejected that approach, arguing that the extradition process should turn on Castro and the criminal charges against him, not on a separate political dispute.

The disagreement gets to the heart of the unusual nature of the case.

Minnesota sees the extradition request as the next procedural step in an ordinary criminal prosecution: a Minnesota defendant was charged, a judge found probable cause, a warrant was issued, and the defendant was located in another state.

Texas sees the matter as a constitutional process in which its governor has an independent responsibility to determine whether the requirements for extradition have been met.

What happens next?

Castro’s release does not erase the Minnesota charges against him, nor does it mean Minnesota has abandoned its extradition request. For now, however, Minnesota has a criminal case that has survived a probable-cause determination and a defendant who was arrested on its warrant but is now free in Texas.

The federal court has declined to force Abbott’s hand.

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That leaves the next step with Texas.

The Constitution requires states to cooperate when people charged with crimes cross state lines. But it also leaves governors with a role in determining whether the constitutional requirements for surrender have been met.