Structure
The act has three parts. Part I abolished the distinction between felony and misdemeanour and makes consequential provisions. Part II abolished a number of obsolete crimes. Part III contains supplementary provisions.
Part I – Felony and misdemeanour
This Part implements the recommendations made by the Criminal Law Revision Committee in their seventh report.
Section 1 abolished the distinction between felonies and misdemeanours. Originally, all crimes in English law were categorised in a hierarchy of treason, felony, and misdemeanour, each with its own rules of procedure and evidence. (Treason had been brought in line with felony in 1945.) The 1967 act abolished felonies and stated that all former felonies would be tried according to the rules of procedure and evidence that applied in trials and pre-trial hearings for misdemeanours, whether the felony had been committed before or after the act was passed. [3] This also had the effect of abolishing the offences of misprision of felony and compounding a felony (but these offences were replaced with new ones in sections 4 and 5). Although all offences were now misdemeanours, the maximum penalties were not affected.
Section 2 created a new category of arrestable offences, since powers of arrest had depended on whether an offence was a felony or a misdemeanour. Arrestable offences were defined as crimes for which the maximum sentence for an adult was five years or more. The section set out the circumstances in which a citizen or a constable could arrest somebody without a court warrant (police powers were more extensive than a civilian's).
Section 2 was repealed and replaced with section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which was broadly similar to section 2 but also applied to some less serious offences. Section 24 was supplemented by a section 25 which created new powers (for constables only) to arrest those suspected of "non-arrestable offences" in certain circumstances. Sections 24 and 25 were controversially amended by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which abolished the difference between arrestable and non-arrestable offences and substituted one set of police arrest powers for all offences, irrespective of the maximum sentence. Citizens' arrest was confined to indictable offences. This change took effect from 1 January 2006.
Section 3 replaces the common law rules on self-defence in English law, such as the duty to retreat. It simply requires that any force used must be "reasonable in the circumstances". It is still in force today and states:
3. — (1) A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large.
(2) Subsection (1) above shall replace the rules of the common law on the question when force used for a purpose mentioned in the subsection is justified by that purpose.
(Further provision about when force is "reasonable" was made by section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.) The definition of what constitutes a 'crime' was clarified under R v Jones (Margaret), R v Milling et al [2006] UKHL 16, which stated it covered any domestic criminal offence under the law of England and Wales. [4] [5] )
Section 4 created a new offence of assisting anyone who had committed an arrestable offence, "with intent to impede his apprehension or prosecution". This replaced the rules on accessories after the fact in felony cases. The penalty for this offence is linked to the penalty for whatever offence the original offender has committed (between three and ten years' imprisonment).
Section 5(1) created a new offence which replaced misprision and compounding of felony. It stated that a person who has information which might lead to the prosecution of an arrestable offence and who agrees to accept consideration (other than [victim] compensation for the offence) in exchange for not disclosing that information to the authorities is liable to two years' imprisonment.
- When the concept of an "arrestable offence" was abolished, sections 4 and 5(1) were amended so that they now apply to any "relevant offence", which is defined in identical terms to the original 1967 definition of arrestable offence. This significantly reduced the scope of these offences from the wider 1984 definition, which had been steadily extended over the years.
- A person may not be prosecuted for these offences without the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions or a Crown prosecutor.
Section 5(2) creates the offence commonly known as "wasting police time", committed by giving false information to the police "tending to show that an offence has been committed, or to give rise to apprehension for the safety of any persons or property, or tending to show that he has information material to any police inquiry". The maximum sentence is six months. A person may not be prosecuted for this offence without the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions or a Crown prosecutor.
Section 5(5) provides that the compounding of an offence other than treason is not an offence otherwise than under section 5 of the Act. This means that:
- The common law offence of compounding treason is preserved.
- The common law offence of compounding a felony, and (if it existed) the common law offence of compounding a misdemeanour, were abolished on 1 January 1968. (In Working Paper No.72, at paragraph 43, the Law Commission suggest that the latter offence might "perhaps" have existed, but offer no explanation.)
Consequential repeals on s.5(5) (s.10(2) and Sch 3, Pt III)
Section 6 deals with the procedures for arraignment and verdict. In particular, it deals with alternative verdicts (or alternative pleas). When a defendant is found not guilty of the offence he is charged with but is found guilty of a less serious offence (or he wishes to plead not guilty to the more serious offence but guilty to a lesser one), the section allows a verdict or plea of guilty to the lesser offence to be entered even though the offence may not be explicitly charged on the indictment. It also states if a defendant refuses to enter a plea then it defaults to not guilty.
Section 7(5) abolished forfeiture of lands, goods and chattels, and abolished outlawry. (The section is now repealed, but such repeals of repeals do not revive the repealed law.)
Part II – Obsolete crimes
This Part implements recommendations of the Law Commission.
Section 13 abolished the common law offences of champerty and barratry, challenging to fight, eavesdropping, and being "a common scold or a common night walker". It also repealed the offence of praemunire (attempting to appeal to a foreign power, e.g. the pope, on legal matters), which had survived on the statute books since 1392. It preserved the common law offence of embracery (which was later abolished by the Bribery Act 2010). It also repealed the Blasphemy Act 1697.
This section extended only to Great Britain. However identical provision was made for Northern Ireland by section 16 of the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1968. [6]
Schedule 4: Repeals
The act repealed the following acts, among others:
In many legal jurisdictions related to English common law, affray is a public order offence consisting of the fighting of one or more persons in a public place to the terror of ordinary people. Depending on their actions, and the laws of the prevailing jurisdiction, those engaged in an affray may also render themselves liable to prosecution for assault, unlawful assembly, or riot; if so, it is for one of these offences that they are usually charged.
A misdemeanor is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences. Typically, misdemeanors are punished with prison time of no longer than one year, monetary fines, or community service.
A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a private citizen – a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval England and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.
Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; committing adultery with the sovereign's consort, with the sovereign's eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the throne; levying war against the sovereign and adhering to the sovereign's enemies, giving them aid or comfort; and attempting to undermine the lawfully established line of succession. Several other crimes have historically been categorised as high treason, including counterfeiting money and being a Catholic priest.
The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder: when someone is killed in the commission of a dangerous or enumerated crime, the offender, and also the offender's accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder.
Misprision of treason is an offence found in many common law jurisdictions around the world, having been inherited from English law. It is committed by someone who knows a treason is being or is about to be committed but does not report it to a proper authority.
The Treason Act 1351 is an Act of the Parliament of England wherethrough, according to William Blackstone, common law treason offences were enumerated and no new offences were, by statute, created. It is one of the earliest English statutes still in force, although it has been very significantly amended. It was extended to Ireland in 1495 and to Scotland in 1708. The Act was passed at Westminster in the Hilary term of 1351, in the 25th year of the reign of Edward III and was entitled "A Declaration which Offences shall be adjudged Treason". It was passed to clarify precisely what was treason, as the definition under common law had been expanded rapidly by the courts until its scope was controversially wide. The Act was last used to prosecute William Joyce in 1945 for collaborating with Germany in World War II.
Misprision of felony is a form of misprision, and an offence under the common law of England that is no longer active in many common law countries. Where it was or is active, it is classified as a misdemeanor. It consists of failing to report knowledge of a felony to the appropriate authorities. Exceptions were made for close family members of the felon and where the disclosure would tend to incriminate the reporter himself.
Arrestable offence is a legal term now obsolete in English law and the legal system of Northern Ireland, but still used in the legal system of the Republic of Ireland. The Criminal Law Act 1967 introduced the category to replace the ancient term felony. That Act had been superseded by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which over the next two decades was itself significantly amended to increase police powers of arrest, relating in particular to entry, search following arrest and to custody. In England and Wales, the category "arrestable offence" ceased to exist with the advent on 1 January 2006 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. In Northern Ireland, it ceased to exist with the advent of the Police and Criminal Evidence (Amendment) Order 2007. In the Republic of Ireland, the Criminal Law Act 1997 abolished the terms felony and misdemeanour and created the term "arrestable offence" in their place.
Misprision in English law describes certain kinds of offence. Writers on criminal law usually divide misprision into two kinds: negative and positive.
The Offences against the Person Act 1861 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It consolidated provisions related to offences against the person from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act. For the most part these provisions were, according to the draftsman of the Act, incorporated with little or no variation in their phraseology. It is one of a group of Acts sometimes referred to as the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861. It was passed with the object of simplifying the law. It is essentially a revised version of an earlier consolidation act, the Offences Against the Person Act 1828, incorporating subsequent statutes.
The Treason Felony Act 1848 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Parts of the Act are still in force. It is a law which protects the King and the Crown.
Compounding a felony was an offence under the common law of England and was classified as a misdemeanour. It consisted of a prosecutor or victim of an offence accepting anything of value under an agreement not to prosecute, or to hamper the prosecution of, a felony. To "compound", in this context, means to come to a settlement or agreement. It is not compounding for the victim to accept an offer to return stolen property, or to make restitution, as long as there is no agreement not to prosecute.
The Forfeiture Act 1870 or the Felony Act 1870 is a British act of Parliament that abolished the automatic forfeiture of goods and land as a punishment for treason and felony. It does not apply to Scotland, which did not fully abolish forfeiture until the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1949. Prior to the act being passed, a person convicted of treason or felony automatically and permanently forfeited all of his lands and possessions to the Crown. The old offence of praemunire, which was also punished with forfeiture, was only a misdemeanour, and so the act did not apply to it.
Compounding treason is an offence under the common law of England. It is committed by anyone who agrees for consideration to abstain from prosecuting the offender who has committed treason.
The Offences Against the Person Act 1828, also known as Lord Lansdowne's Act, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidated for England and Wales provisions in the law related to offences against the person from a number of earlier piecemeal statutes into a single act. Among the laws it replaced was clause XXVI of Magna Carta, the first time any part of Magna Carta was repealed, and the Buggery Act 1533. The act also abolished the crime of petty treason.
The Official Secrets Act 1920 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Accessories and Abettors Act 1861 is a mainly repealed Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It consolidated statutory English criminal law related to accomplices, including many classes of encouragers (inciters). Mainly its offences were, according to the draftsman of the Act, replacement enactments with little or no variation in phraseology. It is one of a group of Acts sometimes referred to as the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861. It was passed with the object of simplifying the law. It collected the relevant parts of Peel's Acts and others.
Common law offences are crimes under English criminal law, the related criminal law of some Commonwealth countries, and under some U.S. state laws. They are offences under the common law, developed entirely by the law courts, having no specific basis in statute.
The first signs of the modern distinction between criminal and civil proceedings were during the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The earliest criminal trials had very little, if any, settled law to apply. However, the civil delictual law was highly developed and consistent in its operation.
