Felony

* An offense which, at common law, occasioned a total forfeiture of lands or goods, or both, and to which capital or other punishment could be added, according to the degree of guilt...

In general acceptation, comprises every species of crime which occasioned at common law the forfeiture of lands and goods.' The term is incapable of definition, and descriptive of no oilense. It conveys no distinct idea. Its origin has puzzled law-writers. It comprehended two descriptions of punishment, the one capital, with the forfeiture of lands and chattels; the other not capital, with forfeiture of chattels only, and burning in the hand, to which imprisonment could be added.* A vague term, definable by the statutes and decisions of each State for itself." In general, includes capital and State's prison offenses.^" The laws of the United States contain no definition. ' ' Tested by the common law, the term has no determinate meaning, and can apply to no case in this country except treason, where limited forfeiture of estate is allowed. But, technically, that is a crime of a higher grade than felony, although it imports also felony. If it be conceded that capital punishment imports a felony, there can be no felonies, at common law, except capital crimes. But that test is untechnical and founded in error. The notion of " moral degradation " by confinement in a penitentiary has grown into a general understanding that that constitutes any offense a felony. This modern idea has come into general use by force of State legislation on the subject.'" > 4 Bl. Com. 189; 2 id. 499; 3 C. B. 461. 2 2 Black, 678. '9 Mo. 152; 36 Pa. 136. < 18 How. 266. » 30 Minn. 204. ' Fee, feud; and Ion, price or value,— 4 Bl. Com. 95. L. L. felonem, tromfelo, fello, a traitor, rebel,

— Skeat. ' [4 Bl. Com. 94-98; 3 Col. 68; 10 Mich. 182; 23 N. Y. 257; 99 id. 216. • " Lynch f. Commonwealth, 88 Pa. 192 (1878), Agnew, Chief Justice. » Bruguier v. United States, 1 Dak. 7 (1867). >» See State v. Felch, 68 N. H. 3 (1876), cases; 20 Gal. 117; 4H Me. 218; 94 lU. BOl; 55 Ala. 341; 4 Ohio St. 542. From an early day, and as a necessity, the' State legislatures have passed laws defining and enumerating felonies as those crimes punishable by confinement in the penitentiary; and such confinement has come to be the test in nearly every State, i The term as used in acts of Congress is not susceptible of definition.^ As a rule, the grade of the offense is determined by the nature of the punishment prescribed. A crime which might be punished by imprisonment in a State's prison was a felony, in New York, prior to the adoption of the Penal Codel'^ ^ Offenses made felonies by statute are called statutory felonies, in contradistinction to common-law felonies — murder, manslaughter, rape, arson, burglary, theft, and robbery. The common -law procedure in the prosecution and punishment, without forfeiture, continues as the characteristic by which felony is distinguished from treason on the one hand and from misdemeanor on the other. Felon. One who has committed a felony. Felonious; feloniously. Generally, so indispensable in an indictment for felony, that no.other word will be recognized as equivalent.^ See Assault; Crime; Damages; Homicide; Infamy; Misprision.