“The Fugitive:” ICE, Fugitives, and FOIA (Part II)
By Bernard Bell, Yale L. Reg., Jan 20, 2020
The Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine
In Ortega-Rodriguez v. U.S., 507 U.S. 234 (1993), the Supreme Court observed that “[i]t has been settled for well over a century that an appellate court may dismiss the appeal of a defendant who is a fugitive from justice during the pendency of his appeal,” id. at 239, citing Smith v. United States, 94 U.S. 97 (1876), as its earliest invocation of the doctrine. The Court’s fugitive disentitlement jurisprudence, Bohanan v. Nebraska, 125 U.S. 692 (1887), Eisler v. United States, 338 U.S. 189 (1949), and Molinaro v. New Jersey, 396 U.S. 365 (1970), inter alia, seems to center around cases in which criminal defendants seek to appeal their convictions while at large. The classic cases do not involve efforts to pursue civil litigation while a fugitive from criminal obligations, much less efforts to pursue civil litigation by those who have defaulted on a civil obligation.
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