Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/802

7C6 ARREST proper precinct, and probably as well one who, from being elected or appointed in the usual way, may be justly presumed to be known to be such officer, need not show his warrant nor even declare his official character before mak- ino- an arrest; for the power to make the arrest might be lost by going through the form of producing and explaining the process. If the officer have no proper warrant or authori- ty, he is liable in damages to the person ar- rested; but if the party resist before investi- gating the officer's right, and the officer has the authority in fact, then the party is indict- able for resisting the officer in the proper dis- charge of his duty. When an officer acts under a warrant, he is justified in executing it, though it was unlawfully issued in fact, pro- vided it is in due and regular form on its face, and the magistrate had general jurisdiction of the case. The question of jurisdiction the of ficer must decide for himself and at his peril ; and if the process is invalid on that ground, the officer is liable in damages. The maxim of the law that a man's house is his castle, does not hold good so far as to secure asylum to criminals ; and when a felony has been cer- tainly committed and the guilty party takes refuge even in his own house, an officer or a private person, even without a warrant, may break into the house to take him, after a proper demand for admission. An officer in such a case, acting in good faith on the positive in- formation and charge of another, would be excused even though the party arrested were not the guilty party. But a private person, in order to justify the breaking of doors without a warrant, must in general prove the actual guilt of th. party arrested, and it will not suf- fice for him to show that a felony was actually committed by some person, or that reasonable grounds of suspicion existed. When an officer has a warrant, he may, even before an indict- ment, break open doors in cases of treason or felonies or breaches of the peace ; but it seems to be the law that, without a warrant and before indictment, he may not do so in the case of mere misdemeanors unaccompanied with violence. After indictment, a person guilty of an offence of any degree may be arrested in any place, and no house can give him sanc- tuary; and not only his own house, but the house of a third person, may in such a case be broken into, after reasonable demand, for the purpose of taking him. To constitute an ar- rest, there must ordinarily be some physical force or restraint imposed npon the person, though there need not be more than the slight- est. Mere words are not enough, unless upon these the party submits without the manifesta- tion of any force. The mere laying of the hand upon the prisoner, or preventing his egress from a room, with words indicating the intent to arrest him, is sufficient. If an officer attempts to arrest one committing a felony, and he takes to flight to escape arrest, the of- ficer may, after demanding that he stop and ARRHID^EUS surrender, shoot him to compel him to do so. But the officer may not do this in the case of a mere misdemeanor. And if an officer or other authorized person, in attempting to make an arrest, is resisted, and in overcoming the resistance, and in using what seems to him to be necessary force, kills the man, he will be held innocent ; and if a person already ar- rested attempts to escape, an officer is justified in killing him if that is necessary to prevent his escape. But whenever an unlawful arrest is attempted or made, as for example when an officer arrests for a misdemeanor without a warrant, and neither on fresh pursuit nor when a breach of the peace is threatened, the party arrested may lawfully resist ; and if in making such resistance he take the officer's life by mischance, it is only manslaughter. When a prisoner is arrested without a warrant, he should be handed over without delay to some magistrate. When the arrest is made under a warrant, all its requirements must be observed, and such a process usually directs the officer to take his prisoner to some court or justice. It is a common practice for police officers and constables to search a prisoner immediate- ly after his arrest, and take from him every- thing found in his possession. There are sev- eral English cases reported on this subject, and it is laid down in them that there is no legal authority for such a proceeding, unless possibly it be in those cases where the things taken are probably the fruits of the crime with which the prisoner is charged. In several such cases in England the judges have severely denounced the practice, and have ordered money especially to be returned to prisoners where their possession of it did not appear to have any connection with the offence for which they were taken, and on the ground that therefore there was no possible justification for depriving them of it. AKKIIIDEl S, Philip, a natural son of Philip of Macedon and the dancing girl Philinna of Larissa, died in 317 B. C. After the death of Alexander the Great in 323, the Macedonian troops in the East nominated Arrhidseus king, with the proviso that the child with which Alexander s wife Roxana was pregnant should be associated with him in the government. The claims of Arrhidaus were strengthened by the fact that his wife, Eurydice, was the grand- daughter of Philip's elder brother and prede- cessor. Being of very feeble intellect, he was a mere puppet in the hands of Perdiccas. On the death of the latter (321), Arrhidrous and Eurydice were in Cappadocia, where Antipater, the regent of Macedonia, found them and took them over with him to Pella. After his death (319), the regent Polysperchon and the dowa- ger grandmother, Olympias, set up, in pref- erence to Arrhidrous, Alexander, Roxana's young son. Arrhidseus and Eurydice protest- ed, and called in the aid of Cassander, Anti- pater' s disinherited heir, but, falling into the hands of Olympias, were both murdered by her orders.