Fugitive From Justice

[federal] Any person who has fled from any State to avoid prosecution for a crime or to avoid giving testimony in any criminal proceeding. 18 U.S.C.

One who, having committed a crime within a jurisdiction, goes into another in order to evade the law and avoid its punishment.

The U.S. Constitution, Art.IV, s.2, provides that 'a person charged in any state with treason, felony or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the same state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.' The act of thus delivering up a prisoner is, by the law of nations, called extradition.

Different opinions are entertained in relation to the duty of a nation, by the law of nations, independently of any treaty stipulations, to surrender fugitives from justice when 'properly demanded.'

Before the executive of the state can be called upon to deliver an individual, it must appear:
    First, that a proper and formal requisition of another governor has been made;
    Second, that the requisition was founded upon an affidavit that the crime was committed by the person charged or such other evidence of that fact as may be sufficient;
    Third, that the person against whom it is directed is a fugitive from justice.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.