Legal Term: BOOTY

Definition: war. The capture of personal property by a public enemy on land, in contradistinction to prize, which is a capture of such property by such an enemy, on the sea.

2. After booty has been in complete possession of the enemy for twenty-four hours, it becomes absolutely his, without any right of postliminy in favor of the original owner, particularly when it has passed, bona fide, into the hands of a neutral. 1 Kent, Com. 110.

3. The right to the booty, Pothier says, belongs to the sovereign but sometimes the right of the sovereign, or the public, is transferred to the soldiers, to encourage them. Tr. du Droit de Propriete, part 1, c. 2, art. 1, 2, Burl. Nat. and Pol. Law, vol. ii. part 4, o. 7, n. 12.

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