Crime

Any act or omission prohibited by public law for the protection of the public, and made punishable by the state in a judicial proceeding in its own name. It is a public wrong, as distinguished from a mere private wrong or injury to an individual.

1 Clark & Marshall, Crimes, § 1.

A wrong which the government deems injurious to the public at large, and punishes through a judicial proceeding in its own name.

1 Bish. New Crim. Law, § 32.

An act committed or omitted in violation of a public law either forbidding or commanding it.

4 Bl. Comm. 15.

This definition has frequently been quoted with approval, but it is inaccurate. In the first place, it is not the "act omitted" that constitutes a crime, but the omission to act. In the second place, the term "public law" is too broad, for it includes many other !aws besides those which define and punish crimes. An act is not necessarily a crime because it is prohibited by a public law. To constitute a crime, it must be punished to protect the public, and must be punished by the state or other sovereign.

Clark & Marshall, Crimes, § 1.

Violations of municipal ordinances are generally held not to be crimes, for the reason that such ordinances are not pubhc laws, and the punishment for their violation is imposed by a less authority than the state.

29 Minn. 445; 36 Ala. 261; 47 Ohio St. 481; 55 Wis. 487.

Contra, see 75 Mich. 611; 27 Tex. App. 342. "Crime" is a generic term, including trea- 258; 48 Ind. 123), though some earlier writers use the term as excluding misdemeanors (4 Bl. Comm. 5).