APPREHEND. To A., in criminal law, means to arrest or seize, in virtue of a war rant or other legal authority, an offender taken in the act, or who is suspected. Arrest or apprehension by officers without warrant may be executed by the followino. persons: 1, By a justice of the peace, who may himself A., or cause to be apprehended, by word only, any person committing a felony or breach of the peace in his presence; 2. The sheriff; 3. The coroner; 4. The constable; 5. By the larceny act (24 and 25 Vict. c. 96), and by the 24 and 25 Vict. c. 97, called the malicious injuries act, a person committing any offense under the same, except that of angling in the daytime, may immediately be apprehended without written warrant. Watchmen—either those appointed by the statute of Winchester (13 Edw. I. c. 4.), to keep watch and ward on all towns from sunsetting to sunrisiug, or such as were mere assistants to the constable—might, in virtue of their office, arrest all offenders, and particularly night-walkers, and commit them to custody till the morning; but not so now.
Any private person, and, a. fortiori, a peace-officer, that is present when any felony is committed, is bound by the law to arrest the felon, on pain of fine and imprisonment, if he is negligently permitted to escape; and by 24 and 23 Vict. c. 95, they may appre hend any person found committing any offense against the provisions of that statute, or any indictable offence by night, that is, between nine in the evening and six in the morning of the next day. They may also, in the case of a person committing a felony in their presence, justify breaking open doors in pursuit of him. 'Upon probable sus picion, however, no one, being a private person, may arrest the felon or other person so suspected. And there is this distinction between the case of a peace-officer and that of a private person—that the former is protected, though it should turn out that no such crime as supposed has been in fact committed by any one, providing he had reasonable ground for suspecting the party arrested; but the latter acts more at his peril, and is not protected unless he can prove an actual commission of the crime by sonic one, as well as a reasonable ground for arresting the particular person. It is also to be observed that a private person cannot, on mere suspicion, breaking open doors, which a con stable, though acting without a warrant, sometimes may do. Within the metropolitan police district, a constable may take into custody, without warrant, all persons whom lie may find, between sunset and the hour of eight in the morning, loitering or lying about, and unable to give a satisfactory account of themselves; or persons charged with aggravated assaults; or persons offending against the metropolitan police acts, whose address cannot be ascertained.. See 2 and 3 Vict. c. 47, ss. 36, 64, 65.
The Scotch law, with regard to the apprehension of criminals, is substantially the same as the English.
By the statutes passed in 45 Geo. III. c. 92, and the 11 and 12 Viet. c. 42, facilities are afforded for the apprehension of criminals in England, Ireland, or Scotland, under warrants issuing from the respective authorities of the three countries, no further formality being necessary in the case of English and Irish warrants to be executed in Scotland, and vice versd, than that they should be indorsed by a judge of the territory where they are to be enforced. And by the 6 and 7 Vict. c. 34, provisions are made for
the apprehension, in the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, of persons com mitting treason and felony in her majesty's dominions out of the united kingdom, and vice rem& for the apprehension in such dominions of persons offending in England, Ireland, or Scotland. By section 3, offenders may be committed to jail until they can be sent back to the place where the offense was committed; and information of the committal, in writing, under the hand of the committing magistrate, accompanied by a copy of the warrant, is directed to be given, in Great Britain, to one of her majesty's principal secretaries of state, and in Ireland to the chief secretary of the lord-lieutenant; and in any other part of her majesty's dominions, to the governor or acting governor. By section 10, the important enactment is made, that it shall not be lawful, to indorse any warrant for the apprehension of an offender under the act, unless it shall appear, upon the face of such warrant itself, that the offense is such, that if committed within that part of her majesty's dominions where the warrant is indorsed, it would have mnounted in law to treason, or some felony such as the justices of the peace in general or quarter sessions in England have not authority to try, under the existing acts—by which the jurisdiction of general and quarter sessions is defined—or unless the deposi tions taken appear sufficient to warrant committal for trial. The effect of this enact ment is that the offenses for which criminals may be apprehended, under the 6 and 7 Vict. c. 34, are as follow: Any treason, murder, or capital felony; or any felony which, when committed by a person not previously convicted of felony, is punishable by transportation for life, or for any of the following offenses: 1. Misprision of treason. 2. Offenses against the queen's title, prerogative, person, or government, or amainst either house of parliament. 3. Offenses subject to the penal ties of prmmunire. "4. Blasphemy, and offenses against religion. 5. Administering or taking unlawful oaths. 6. Perjury and subornation of perjury. 7. Making or suborn ing any other person to make a false oath, affirmation, pr declaration, punishable as perjury or as a misdemeanor. 8. Forgery. 9. Unlawfully and maliciously setting fire to crops of corn, grain, or pulse, or to an part of a wood, coppice, or plantation of trees, or to any heath, gorse, furze. or fern. 10. Big -Amy, and offenses against the laws relating to marriage. 11. Abduction of women and girls. 12. Endeavoring to conceal the birth of a child, 13. Offenses against any provision of the laws relating to bank rupts and insolvents. 14. Composing, printing, or publishing blasphemous, seditious, or defamatory libels. 15. Bribery. 1G. Unlawful combinations and conspiracies, except conspiracies or combinations to commit any offense which justices or recorder respectively have or has jurisdiction to try when committed by one person. 17. Steal ing, or fraudulently taking, or injuring or destroying records or documents belonging to any court of law or equity, or relating to any proceeding therein. 18. Stealing or fraudulently destroying or concealing wills or testamentary papers, or any document or written instrument being or containing evidence of the title to any real estate, or any interest in lands, tenements, or hereditaments.