USA: The FBI captures the offender 50 years after his escape

For the investigators, the story is a great success, the conclusion of a ten-year hunt: the FBI Federal Police denounced the arrest of a criminal in the USA, almost 50 years after he managed to escape judicial custody. Leonard Moses, who was convicted of violent clashes following the murder of civil rights activist Martin Luther King in 1968, was arrested at his home in Grand Blanc, Michigan, the FBI said Friday. He had changed his name and worked as “Paul Dickinson” by changing pharmacies.

Moses was sentenced to life in prison for throwing arsonists with other protesters in Pittsburgh during the 1968 riots. One of the Molotov cocktails set fire to the home of a woman who was seriously injured and later died of burns. Now it is hoped that the victim’s family can close the case, said the sheriff in charge, William Mullen. The arrest shows “that one cannot escape from one’s past”.

The Supreme Court defines exclusion from pardon as cruel

On the other hand, this case could still lead to discussions. Because the verdict comes from another time, and it is now too harsh even for the US judiciary: Moses was 15 at the time of the crime, he was sentenced to 17 years.

He was now 68 when he was arrested. In 1971 Moses had used an open space to escape: he had escaped from the police during his grandmother’s funeral.

The FBI resumed its investigation into the case in 2016, posting sought-after information on large electronic billboards and offering a reward for clues into Moses’ arrest. The efforts were unsuccessful.

Earlier this year he was questioned about another case, according to the FBI. Suspect Paul Dickson’s fingerprints were found to match Leonard Moses’. Moses was finally arrested at his home Thursday without resistance.

In 1971 the sentence was: life imprisonment, without the possibility of pardon. However, the ruling can still be changed. In 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled that the life-long incarceration of minors without the possibility of pardon was cruel and inappropriate (see the verdict here).