Title 33 — Navigation and Navigable WatersRelease 119-73not60
§384 Condemnation of Piratical Vessels
Title 33 › Chapter 7— REGULATIONS FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY › § 384
Summary
When a ship was built, fitted, kept, or used to carry out or try acts of piracy and it is captured in a U.S. port, it will be taken and, after a trial in the U.S. admiralty court for that district, given to the United States and the captors. The court will order the ship sold and decide how to split the money.
Full Legal Text
Title 33, §384
Navigation and Navigable Waters — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Whenever any vessel, which shall have been built, purchased, fitted out in whole or in part, or held for the purpose of being employed in the commission of any piratical aggression, search, restraint, depredation, or seizure, or in the commission of any other act of piracy as defined by the law of nations, or from which any piratical aggression, search, restraint, depredation, or seizure shall have been first attempted or made, is captured and brought into or captured in any port of the United States, the same shall be adjudged and condemned to their use, and that of the captors after due process and trial in any court having admiralty jurisdiction, and which shall be holden for the district into which such captured vessel shall be brought; and the same court shall thereupon order a sale and distribution thereof accordingly, and at its discretion.
Legislative History
Notes & Related Subsidiaries
Editorial Notes
Codification R.S. § 4296 derived from acts Mar. 3, 1819, ch. 77, § 4, 3 Stat. 513; Jan. 30, 1823, ch. 7, 3 Stat. 721; Aug. 5, 1861, ch. 48, § 1, 12 Stat. 314.
Reference
Citations & Metadata
Citation
33 U.S.C. § 384
Title 33 — Navigation and Navigable Waters
Last Updated
Apr 5, 2026
Release point: 119-73not60