Here’s the situation. Suppose someone is arrested for a crime they did not commit. They keep attesting to their innocence, but they are convicted nonetheless. They then manage to escape from prison, but are caught. Now let’s say a short time later they are cleared of the original crime. Did the escape count as an additional crime, so they will still be in prison for that offense? Or did it just add to their sentence, which was reduced to nothing anyway, so they are free to go?
Escaping from a prison, detention facility, or custody is a seperate offense…and the jail time is added to the original sentence. However, if a person was found not guily…there is a good chance that the escaping charge would be thrown out.
I imagine it’d be a pretty serious crime still. Kinda like jumping bail. The government doesn’t want people who decide they’re innocent escaping. It would be CHAOS… CHAOS!!
I recall reading about a case some years back of a fella who was wrongly imprisoned and turned to the law books. He discovered that, although escaping from prison was a crime, it was not a crime to follow another prisoner’s escape attempt/route. He proceeded to escape periodically (but only by following other prisoners) for around 10 years before he was cleared of the original offense.
I’ll see what I can find.
I have absolutely no qualification to think this – but yes. Even if you are wrongfully imprisoned, it would be a separate offense to break out. Two wrongs don’t make a right
WAG is that the escape must be from a rightful imprisonment. If the imprisonment was not correct, there is no crime to try to escape from a wrongful imprisonment.
I’ve read that there’s a man in prison at the moment who was convicted of murder who three times escaped from prison but was caught. When his murder conviction was overturned, the state tried him for the escapes and sentenced him to life because he was a three-time offender.
I read about this story many years ago. As far as I know it’s a UL, but I didn’t find it on snopes.
It doesn’t make sense, if you think about it. If a man were wrongly convicted in the first place, I doubt that he would be sent back to prison.
Well, not unless this was in Texas. 
Peace,
mangeorge
Trust me - the escape is a separate crime. Whether the original conviction was valid or not is irrelevant.
Just as in most states, it is illegal to resist arrest, even if the intended arrest was improper.
Because even if you did not actually commit, if you were found guilty in a trial- you are guilty, and the imprisonment IS correct and lawful. Though I think oldscratch was being sarcastic, just imagine if every innocent nutcase in prison (they are ALL innocent, ask 'em) tried to escape thinking there would be no repercussions. There are other avenues to pursue if you are actually innocent. So, if you are legally held by an officer or a detention facility, you are NOT allowed to escape. It is a crime. Though I could see where a jury would find a person not guilty of escape if the original crime was found to have not been committed by the defendant. But they wouldn’t have to. Only if they are 12 nice guys…
That being said…
In Florida, a person is allowed to resist an officer WITHOUT violence if the arrest is unlawful. This does not mean ‘if you are arrested for a crime you did not commit’ because if an officer has probable cause then it is a lawful arrest. If an officer were completely out of his mind I guess, and he were trying to arrest a person for something that is not a crime, and the suspect knew there was no such crime, (Think Chief Wiggum) then the suspect could resist without violence. Resisting without violence includes, yelling and running away. But that’s about it.
I am not sure how much this comes up, but with some of the cops out there… probably more often than I think.
Yes, escape and abscondence are felony crimes. Even if an inmate had his conviction on his original crime overturned, he would still be subject to any sentence he received for escaping or absconding.
I don’t know where this supposedly occurred so I can’t speak with absolute certainty, but in every place I’ve heard of, it makes no difference if you’re the first, second, or twentieth person to use a particular escape route. Although I suppose if twenty people escape by the same route, you have to start wondering about the caliber of your staff.
The escapee in this case would be running up against the doctrine of collateral attack. Generally speaking, if there is a valid court order against you, your remedy is to appeal it You can’t ignore it (i.e. by absconding or escaping custody), and then try to challenge the validity of the order as a defence to the charge of breaching it.
If the court has issued a warrant of committal, it’s valid until it expires, or is set aside by a higher court. Absconding contrary to the terms of the order is a breach of that order, even if it is later set aside.
What about this scenario then? Say you’ve been convicted of a crime due to prosecutor’s fradulent behavior or police planting evidence against you, as all too often happens if you believe these news stories on TV. They do happen, and the person wrongly convicted. found innocent on a re-trial after his initial trial was found faulty, sues for wrongful imprisonment. He certainly has grounds for that suit in these cases when the prosecutor, the police dept., etc. intent on getting the public off their backs and closing the case will prosecute some one they know is innocent. Doesn’t matter. So long as they convict some one.
Now, the person so wrongfully convicted was falsely arrested and/or imprisoned. If he attempted to escape (like the “Fugitive,” only in the TV story there was no actual wrongdoing by the prosecutors), would he be guilty of a crime? Since when is it a crime to escape from an unlawful and false imprisonment?
the thinking is that there are other remedies available.
In your scenario, the ‘illegal’ nature of the incarceration wasn’t established until afterwards. The lawsuit and monetary damages would be to compensate for that unlawful incarceration, however while the incarceration was happening, it would have been considered lawful.
When I was working at the correction center, I would testify in the criminal trials for escape when folks ran off. the elements of the crime were:
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Was the person duly sentenced to a term of incarceration?
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Was the facility legally a penal facility?
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Were they there?
That’s it. Now the defense attorneys did try to interject stuff about if the person (in my terms) was a happy camper or felt that they were being oppressed or what have you. They were all found guilty of escape.
Say that Richard Kimball (the Fugitive) is on death row. He has appealed several times, and each time the appellate court has found that his original trial was conducted fairly with no material errors on the part of the prosecution. Now, he escapes, finds the one-armed man, and proves that he didn’t commit the murder for which he was convicted.
My impression was that, not only will he be charged for escape, but he still stands to be executed on the original charges. The fact that he demonstrated his innocence is irrelevant, and the only thing that can save him from taking the big dirt nap is executive clemency. Am I right?
(Note that I’m not talking about the movie, TV, or real-life versions of the Fugitive; I’m just using this as an example.)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Bear_Nenno *
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Nope. You had my line of thought pretty much pegged. Although personally, I’d be more than happy to see most of the people in prison out of it, in a strictly legal sense I understand why the law is in place.
And Zarathustra… yep.
I stand corrected. Thanks, Wendell, for the link. I bookmarked it for further action.
This is not justice. It’s an insult to our legal system. The people responsible for this man still being in prison should be in jail themselves. And it pisses me off.
I’ll write and fax and sign petitions, for all the good it’ll do.
Peace,
mangeorge
I would think that he would be entitled to a new trial. Innocence is never irrelevant. That’s what it’s all about. In fact, how did he demonstrate his innocence? He’d have to do that at a trial.
Is that the way you feel it should be, or do you know for a fact that this is actually the case? From what little I know of law, it appears that what appears fair might not necessarily be so.