Felo De Se

Lat. [L. Fr. felon de luy mesme.] A felon of himself; a self murderer. One who deliberately puts an end to his own existence, or commits any unlawful malicious act, the consequence of which is his own death; as if, attempting to kill another, he runs upon his antagonist's sword, or shooting at another, the gun bursts, and kills himself. Hawk. P. C. b.

1, ch. 27. 1 Hal. P. C. 413.

The party must be of years of discretion, and in his senses, else it is no crime.

4 Bl. Com. 189. 4 Steph. Com. 109.

Suicide (in the sense of intentional self-destruction,) has always been regarded as a crime in English law, punished with forfeiture of goods and chattels, and, until recently, branded by an ignominious burial in the highway, with a stake driven through the body.

4 Chitty's Bl. Com. 190.

By the act of 4 Geo. IV. c. 52, § 1, this barbarous kind of burial was abolished, and the bodies of suicides were directed to be interred in church yards, or other ordinary burial grounds, but under marked circumstances indicative of the law's abhorrence of the crime; the interment being ordered to take place at night, and without the performance of any christian rites. Id. ibid. note. Suicide does not seem to be regarded as a crime in the United States.