Fugitive Felon Act

The interwar period in the United States saw both an increase in crime and improvements in transportation that made apprehension of criminals more difficult.[3] Interstate fugitives could only be returned to the prosecuting state through rendition, a lengthy and costly process rife with bureaucratic difficulties and subject to state discretion. On the other hand, a fugitive arrested for a federal crime could be quickly and easily returned to the relevant federal district via federal removal, as arresting officers had national jurisdiction.[4] The lack of a right of law enforcement to cross state lines to pursue a criminal also presented crime-fighting difficulties that could be solved by allowing federal authorities to apprehend fugitives.[5] The crimes the Fugitive Felon Act was meant to address were primarily those perpetuated by armed groups like the Dillinger Gang.[6]

The bill that would become the Fugitive Felon Act was introduced to the Senate by Royal S. Copeland, chair of the Committee on Commerce, on January 11, 1934, as part of a series of thirteen bills to strengthen crime-fighting.[7] The bill, then known as S. 2253, was passed by the Senate on March 29, 1934.[8]

S. 2253 was passed by the House on May 17, 1934.[9] The bill was signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt a day later. In its 1934 formulation, the Act read as follows:[7]

Be it enacted, etc., That it shall be unlawful for any person to move or travel in interstate commerce from any state, territory or possession of the United States, or the District of Columbia, with intent either (1) to avoid prosecution for murder, kidnaping, burglary, robbery, mayhem, rape, assault with a dangerous weapon, or extortion accompanied by threats of violence, or attempt to commit any of the foregoing, under the laws of the place from which he flees, or (2) to avoid giving testimony in any criminal proceedings in which a felony is charged. Any person who violates the provisions of this act shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not more than $5,000 or by imprisonment for not longer than 5 years, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Violations of this act may be prosecuted only in the Federal judicial district in which the original crime to have been committed.

On October 4, 1961, President John F. Kennedy approved an amendment of the bill that expanded its coverage to include fugitives fleeing prosecution for any crime punishable by death or imprisonment for greater than one year in the original jurisdiction.[10] The amendment faced little opposition within the House compared to other crime-related legislation passed around the same time.[11] The amendment resulted in what FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called an "appreciable increase" in apprehended fugitives: in the two years following the amendment the number of located fugitives increased from 1,418 to 2,514.[12]

Although the Fugitive Felon Act de jure applies to all state felonies, including parental kidnapping, the United States Department of Justice de facto set an exception for such cases until the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act was passed in 1980. The PKPA explicitly stated that the Fugitive Felon Act applied to parental kidnapping cases.[13]

In 1957, the power of the Act was severely restrained when the eastern division of the Northern District of Illinois ruled in United States v. Rappaport that the law only applied to fugitives fleeing a pending prosecution. However, concerns about the Act's power being curtailed were alleviated by two later rulings: both the Second Circuit in United States v. Bando (1957) and the District of Minnesota in United States v. Lupino (1958) ruled that the Act also applied to people fleeing potential prosecution.[14]

The FFA's constitutionality has been challenged several times since its passage, with violations of the Eighth Amendment (claiming that the maximum penalty set out by the Act constituted cruel and unusual punishment), Tenth Amendment (claiming that the law interfered with law enforcement and extradition powers reserved to the states), and Due Process Clause (claiming that the FFA was too ambiguous for an accused to understand) being alleged before federal courts. All such arguments have been dismissed.[15]