Ker v. Illinois

Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436 (1886), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously held that a fugitive kidnapped from abroad could not claim any violation of the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.

Ker v. Illinois
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 27, 1886 Decided December 6, 1886
Full case name	Frederick Ker v. People of the State of Illinois
Citations	119 U.S. 436 (more) 7 S. Ct. 225; 30 L. Ed. 421; 1886 U.S. LEXIS 2007
Case history
Prior	Writ of Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois
Holding
There is no language in the 1870 Treaty of Extradition between the U.S. and Peru, which says in terms that a party fleeing from the U.S. to escape punishment for crime becomes thereby entitled to an asylum in the country to which Ker has fled.
Court membership
Chief Justice Morrison Waite Associate Justices Samuel F. Miller · Stephen J. Field Joseph P. Bradley · John M. Harlan William B. Woods · Stanley Matthews Horace Gray · Samuel Blatchford
Case opinion
Majority	Miller, joined by unanimous

The incident that led to this decision involved a Pinkerton Detective Agency agent, Henry Julian, was hired by the federal government to collect a larcenist, Frederick Ker, who had fled to Peru. Although Julian had the necessary extradition papers—the two governments had negotiated an extradition treaty a decade earlier—he found that there was no official to meet his request due to the recent Chilean military occupation of Lima. Rather than return home empty-handed, Julian kidnapped the fugitive, with assistance from Chilean forces, and placed him on a U.S. vessel heading back to the United States.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 119
• Ker-Frisbie Doctrine
• United States v. Rauscher, 119 U.S. 407 (1886)
• Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519 (1952)
• United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990)
• United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992)

Further reading

• Fairman, Charles (1953). "Ker v. Illinois Revisited". American Journal of International Law. 47 (4): 678–686. doi:10.2307/2194916. JSTOR 2194916. S2CID 246007113.
• Preuss, Lawrence (1935). "Kidnaping of Fugitives from Justice on Foreign Territory". American Journal of International Law. 29 (3): 502–507. doi:10.1017/S0002930000168587. JSTOR 2190429. S2CID 151551091.

External links

• Works related to Ker v. People of the State of Illinois at Wikisource
• Text of Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436 (1886) is available from: CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress