| Although the policy of the federal government is that most hostage-taking offenses within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States should be handled by state and local authorities, there are situations in which the federal government may be involved in prosecuting such offenses. These situations include the taking of a federal official or an international guest as a hostage, a demand against the United States regarding the hostage-taking, or when international terrorists are the perpetrators.
In 1984, Congress enacted a federal hostage-taking statute, which statute implemented the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages. The statute defines hostage-taking as the seizing or detention of an individual, which seizing or detention is combined with a threat to kill, to injure, or to continue to detain the individual, in order to compel a third person or a government organization to take an action or to abstain from taking an action as a condition of the release of the individual. The seizure or detention of an individual under the statute includes both physical restraint, such as confinement of the individual against the individual's will, and non-physical restraint, such as the individual's detention through fear or deception. The terms "government organization" include national, state, local, and international governmental organizations.
In accordance with the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, the federal statute does not apply when a hostage-taking offense is committed within the United States, when all the perpetrators and the victims are citizens or residents the United States, or when all the perpetrators are found in the United States. In other words, the perpetrators can only be prosecuted under state or local laws and cannot be prosecuted under the federal statute. However, the federal statute will apply if the perpetrators commit the hostage-taking in order to compel an action on the part of the United States government or if a perpetrator or a victim is not a citizen or a resident of the United States.
The federal statute may also apply to a hostage-taking that is committed outside the United States. If a perpetrator or a victim is a citizen or a resident of the United States, if a perpetrator is subsequently found in the United States, or if a perpetrator is attempting to compel an action on the part of the United States government, the United States has extra-territorial jurisdiction. Under these situations, the perpetrator or the perpetrators may be prosecuted under the federal statute.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has the authority to investigate federal hostage-taking offenses. The federal offense of hostage-taking may be punishable by the death penalty in accordance with the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |