State v. Lonergan

After an officer placed defendant under arrest, defendant broke away and took off running. The majority holds that, in running away from the officer, defendant was not “escaping” from him. The majority’s holding is at odds with both the ordinary understanding and the legally accepted meaning of that term. The act of escaping either from an officer’s grasp or the confines of a prison does not end once a defendant has broken away from the officer or crossed the threshold of the prison. Rather, the act of escaping includes, at a minimum, the immediate flight from either the officer or the…