What is a prisoner?
A prisoner is a person in custody in a penal institution or correctional institution or a jail, in accordance with law.
What is the crime of escape?
Escape means leaving confinement without permission.
What is the difference between a “penal institution” and a “correctional institution?"
There is no difference. A penal institution or a correctional institution is any building, enclosure, space, or structure used for the custody, control, and rehabilitation of committed offenders.
Keep in mind that a police station cellblock is not a penal institution.
What is jail?
Jail the detention of persons charged with a crime and committed by a court until they tried. Moreover, jails detain persons arrested without a warrant and not people with bail pending appearance before the district court instead of a local lockup.
How does a person commit the crime of escape?
In order to prove a defendant guilty of the legal offense of escape, the government must prove all of the following beyond a reasonable doubt:
- That the defendant is a prisoner in custody
- That the defendant:
- Escaped from
- That institution or jail
- The grounds of that institution or jail
- A courthouse
- The grounds of a courthouse
- The custody of an officer of that institution, jail, or courthouse
…while conveyed to or from that institution or jail.
- Failed to returnfrom any temporary release from:
- That institution or jail
- The grounds of that institution or jail
- A courthouse
- The grounds of a courthouse
- The custody of an officer of that institution, jail, or courthouse
…while conveyed to or from that institution or jail.
- That the defendant intentionally left custody without permission, in the sense that it was not done by accident or mistake
What other types of escape are against the law?
Other situations where escape is a crime include:
- When the escape is from a jail or a correctional institution
- The escape is from a courthouse
- When an escape is only an attempt to escape
- The escape is from a work release program
- To a defendant not on parole yet
- Prisoners temporarily transferred to a hospital
- When a guard supervises a prisoner who is not officially an “officer”
- The person fails to return to serve a weekend sentence
- When a pretrial detainee escapes
- The escape is from a county jail or house of correction
- When a deputy sheriff is transporting a sentenced prisoner from county jail to court
Even if the original conviction contained a legal error, a person can still be guilty of the crime of escape.
Remember that the government can demonstrate lawful pretrial custody of a defendant obtained with an interstate detainer (i.e. a hold placed on a criminal defendant) by relying on presumption of regularity (i.e. assumption that transactions made in the normal course of business have been conducted in the usual manner).
Additionally, wrongful intent is a necessary component of the criminal offense of escape, but is also inferable from unlawful departure in absence of a satisfactory explanation.
IF YOU OR A LOVED ONE HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME, AND YOU NEED AN EXPERIENCED CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER WORKING ON YOUR SIDE TO PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS, PLEASE CONTACT CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY WILLIAM J. BARABINO.
CALL 781-393-5900 TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR AVAILABLE DEFENSES.
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