Felony

GENERALLY, THE DESIGNATION of an offense as a felony or misdemeanor is determined by the punishment prescribed. Thus, a felony is defined as an offense for which an offender, upon conviction, may be punished by death or by imprisonment for more than one year, and an offense is s felony so long as the statutory maximum punishment is for more than, that is, in excess of one year. Felony has been said to be crime of a graver or more atrocious nature than those crimes designated as misdemeanors.

What may be a felony in one jurisdiction may be a misdemeanor in another, and vice versa, and in some jurisdictions crimes may not be classified at all. The very concept of felony seems to have been introduced into England by the Normans. The term originally referred to a breach of faith between man and lord. The Norman word for such a breach of faith was felony. In England after the Norman Conquest, the most serious crimes came to be called felonies because they were considered to be breaches of the fealty owed by all people to the king as guardian of the peace of the realm. In common law, a felony was an offense punishable by forfeiture of land and goods to the crown. Thus, the term became applicable to certain specified crimes, including murder, rape, robbery, and others, which still are referred to as common-law felonies.

An appeal of felony was an ancient form of a lawsuit brought by a victim, or the heir or widow of a slain victim, against a wrongdoer to prove the commission of a felony. Appeals in the sense of suits by victims seeking punishment for their wrongdoers came before the king's court when victims formally alleged that wrongdoers acted feloniously and against the king's peace. Victims could bring appeals for any of the traditional commonlaw felonies, including homicide, rape, mayhem (maiming), robbery, burglary, larceny, and arson. The consequences of conviction were drastic. The usual sentence for felons after 1200 was death by hanging. The king received the value of any goods, chattels, and short-term interests in land possessed by a felon after the commission of the felony.

A mark of the ancient origin and drastic consequences of the appeal was the use of trial by battle to decide the truth or falsehood of the accusation. By 1250, defendants in most appeals could choose to defend themselves either “by my body” (waging battle with the plaintiff in a duel) or “by the country” (putting the question of a person's guilt or innocence to an inquest, a jury of 12 lawful men from the place where the alleged wrong occurred.

[Page 315]All litigants who lost their cases before the king's courts in this period had to pay an immurement, a small monetary penalty, for asserting their unsuccessful claims or defenses. Unsuccessful plaintiffs in appeals of felony were in much more serious trouble. The Bracton Treatise, written in the mid-13th century, stated that in earlier times, a false accuser suffered the same death penalty the falsely accused defendant would have suffered. In the 13th century and afterward, unsuccessful plaintiffs in appeals, including those who had admitted defeat in battle, could be sent immediately to prison until they obtained a pardon or paid a large fine to the king.

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