yourstate.us
Home / United States / 18 U.S.C.
18 U.S.C. § 1652

Citizens as pirates

United States · Title 18 — CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE · Status: effective

Get this as JSONEmbed this
Cite this
Citation
18 U.S.C. § 1652, Citizens as pirates, United States, version 1 as recorded 2026-07-09, yourstate.us, https://yourstate.us/provision/449294
Permanent ID
ys:prov:449294@1
SHA-256
7bc50ba322383a047c2c8085f77819a5860cd1a835d3078fd8b00fff290f021c

The hash is SHA-256 of this version's text, with every run of whitespace collapsed to a single space and the ends trimmed. The ID always leads back here, and checking it says whether the text you cited is still the current version.

Full text

Whoever, being a citizen of the United States, commits any murder or robbery, or any act of hostility against the United States, or against any citizen thereof, on the high seas, under color of any commission from any foreign prince, or state, or on pretense of authority from any person, is a pirate, and shall be imprisoned for life.

Legislative history

We haven't linked the enacting public law for this provision yet. That means it is missing from our records, not that no law enacted it.