Efforts to extradite Ira Einhorn, C’61, to the United States to serve a life sentence for a 1977 murder have so far met with a firm “non” from French authorities.
An appeals court panel in December refused to hand over the
57-year-old fugitive, convicted in absentia in 1993, because there is no
provision to grant him a retrial upon his return to Philadelphia.
Einhorn, a countercultural guru in this city during the 1970s, jumped
bail and fled to Europe in 1981, before he was to go on trial for the
bludgeoning death of his girlfriend, Helen “Holly” Maddux.
While prosecutors back here fumed over the ruling, Einhorn and
his Swedish wife defiantly strolled through the marketplace of the
southwestern village of Champagne-Mouton, where he had been hiding under
a false name for four years before his capture on June 13. Released
from prison, he’s free to remain in France, pending an appeal and a
separate hearing on his illegal entry into the country. Recently, the
Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Senate passed bills that would
permit his retrial, and 35 lawmakers wrote to French President Jacques
Chirac, urging cooperation.