Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by marcod 718 days ago
Would you expect that kind of book to make any difference for final sentencing?
3 comments

No, but it will make a difference in determining whether they're a flight risk by the judge. Given the evidence these two will probably await trail in jail rather than at home. Or at the very least they just bought themselves a nice new ankle bracelet.
The books evidence a desire to flee but equally evidence an ineptitude, the lack of an ability to flee. Buying a ticket for an international flight is akin to making an appointment with the FBI for you to be arrested. The FBI only dreams that every fugitive first pass through inspection/x-ray before being arrested in an airport terminal ringed with security. No need to worry about a fight, weapons or a dangerous police chase. The perps have already been frisked by the FAA. If these people ever run, they won't get far.
The FAA does not run airport security.

The FAA administers aviation, an actual necessary and valuable endeavor. The theatrical display you are subjected to in airports is overseen by DHS as justification for their continued existence as a jobs program. It has nothing to do with aviation.

But yes, the FBI would be happy to have fugitives be caught at an airport checkpoint, although I doubt they’d risk relying on DHS to do it.

At what point does a person’s purchase of an international flight ticket trigger an alert to LE?

Or does getting a notification like this require a warrant or similar court approval first?

I don't know that the system is all that great. I've known people with multiple warrants fly around and in/out of the country multiple times before finally getting stopped.
It's actually the TSA that does the frisking in the US at airports.
I can see it making a difference when presented to jury, if it's admitted as evidence. It may not be main evidence but combined altogether with other things they did, it might tilt the balance into the "sentence them closer the maximum term limit" vs the "lower end".
Judges not juries determine sentences in the US. In federal court the Guidelines are applied resembling nothing so much as a Pathfinder grapple roll.
convince jury