No Sweat.

"There cannot be any cleaner situation than this one," said Maria Haberfeld, head of the law and police science department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "You cannot shoot any fleeing felon, but certainly you can shoot the one who poses a real threat. There was no reason to believe this person who had killed a police officer before was not posing a real threat."

The same legal reasoning applied to the killing of his accomplice, Richard Matt, who was shot three times in the head.

Sweat eluded capture for two more days, until he ran across Sgt. Jay Cook. Sweat had been serving life without parole in the killing of a sheriff's deputy, by shooting him twenty two times. Matt had been serving 25 years to life for the killing of his former boss.

Cook was alone in his car when he spotted someone walking along the side of a road less than 2 miles from the Canadian border. He got out of his car, approached the man and said, "Hey, come over here. Sweat fled, and Cook chased him, firing twice.

A 1986 U.S. Supreme Court case known as Tennessee v. Garner laid out how force can be used to capture a fleeing suspect: Deadly force can't be used to prevent escape unless "the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."

New York state law also allows for deadly force if a dangerous convict is escaping from a detention facility, which is why armed guards may be stationed in towers at prisons.

Now, all can go back to their regular life, No Sweat.