felony
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 318 U.S. 101 - Jerome v. United States · 1943Most cited · 721 citing opinions
Bank Robbery Act
as used in § 2(a) takes its meaning from federal statutes rather than from the common law... § 2(a) is not deprived of vitality if it is interpreted to exclude state felonies and to include only those federal felonies which affect the banks protected by the Act
How the Supreme Court has restated “felony”
Each Supreme Court definition of “felony,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “felony”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “felony” — 921 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1850–1943
- ORIGINAL
Sir William Blackstone observes, that the term felony originally denoted the penal consequences of the crime, namely, the forfeiture of the lands and goods; but that, by long use, it came, at last, to signify the actual crime committed. He further remarks, that the idea of felony is so generally connected with that of capital punishment, that it is difficult to separate them, and that the interpretation of the law conforms to that usage; and therefore, if a statute makes any new offence felony, the law implies that it shall be punished with death, that is, by hanging as well as by forfeiture, unless the offender prays the benefit of clergy.
All offenses which may be punished by death or imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, shall be deemed felonies.