Ker v. Illinois

Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously held that a fugitive kidnapped from abroad and taken back to the U.S. to be tried for a crime may be tried, regardless of the legality of the kidnapping.
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.