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CONTENTS.

The pages referred to are those between brackets []

CHAPTER I.

Of Crimes and their Division, Treasons, Felonies, and Misdemeanors

CHAPTER II.

The Prosecutor-His Rights, Duties, and Obligations

The Arrest of Criminals

CHAPTER III.

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Of the Grand Jury, and the Presentment and Finding of the Bill

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CRIMINAL LAW.

CHAPTER I.

OF CRIMES AND THEIR DIVISION.

THE design of the present work is to present the reader with the various steps which are taken in a criminal prosecution. And it may be as well, at the outset, to say something of crimes in general. All crimes, according to the law of England, are divided into treasons, felonies, and misdemeanors. The offence of treason, at common law, was somewhat indeterminate. The statute 25 Edw. III., c. 2, confirmed by subsequent statutes, determined what offences only for the future should be considered treason. Under this statute, the offence consists of six branches:1. When a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king, of our lady his queen, or of their eldest son and heir.

2. If a man do violate the king's companion, or the king's eldest daughter unmarried.

3. If a man do levy war against our lord the king in his realm. 4. If a man be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere.

*5. If a man counterfeit the king's great or privy seal. 6. If a man slay the chancellor, treasurer, or the king's jus[*2] tices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assize, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places doing their offices.

FELONY, in the general acceptation of our English law, comprises every species of crime which occasioned at common law, the forfeiture of lands and goods. Sir Edward Coke says, that treason was anciently comprised under the name of felony: and in the statute 25 Edw. III., c. 2, speaking of some crimes, we find the following words :-" Whether they be treason or other felony." All treasons are therefore felonies though all felonies are not treasons. Learned but fanciful writers have given many derivations of the word felony. I think Sir Henry Spellman's is the most probable one. Felon, according to him, is derived from two northern words, namely, fee, which signifies fief; and lon,

which signifies price or value. Felony is, therefore, the same as " pretium feudi”—the consideration for which a man gives up his fief. These derivations are more amusing than instructive.

MISDEMEANOR is a term generally used in contradistinction to felony, and comprehends all indictable offences which do not amount to felony, as perjury, battery, libels, conspiracies, &c.

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THE first question to be considered upon the commission of an offence is, by whom is the offender to be brought to justice. Though every man is entitled to prefer an accusation against any one suspected of crime, criminal prosecutions for the most part are instituted in the name of the crown; and persons entitled to prefer accusations are bound by the strongest obligations both of law and reason, to do so; and those obligations are, in many cases, enforced by the law itself. Thus, in cases of treason and felony, a person knowingly concealing the crime is guilty of what is called a misprision of the crime. In the case of treason, he may be punished by the forfeiture of his goods, the loss of all profits of his lands during life, and imprisonment of his person for life. If a public officer conceal a felony, he is punishable by fine and imprisonment for a year and a day; and any person other than an officer, for the same offence, is punishable by fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the judges. Even in cases of misdemeanor, if the crime be of a public character, it is illegal to receive a consideration for suppressing a prosecution; and in a recent case in the Queen's Bench, it is questionable whether an arrangement for a compromise can be made even *with the consent

[*4] of the court. Magistrates have power, in order to compel persons to perform the duty imposed on them by law to prosecute, to bind them over to prosecute and give evidence, and, upon refusal, to commit them to prison. The law also holds out many inducements to persons to prosecute, and throws around a prosecutor every fair and reasonable protection, insomuch that he cannot even be sued for wrongly indicting a person, unless he has been actuated by malice, and the proceedings were destitute of any reasonable foundation.

CHAPTER III.

THE ARREST OF CRIMINALS.

WE shall now shortly consider the law relative to arrest on a criminal charge before indictment. In every case of treason, felony, or

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