Firearms and offensive weapons
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2011) |
The first signs of the modern distinction between criminal and civil proceedings were during the Norman conquest of England in 1066. [1] 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 (except where the king wanted to raise money by selling a new form of writ).
A local lord of the manor (or family) could hold their servants and tenants responsible in a manorial court and was among wealthy people who could more easily enlist the help of a county or city bailiff, posse comitatus if one existed and the justices of the peace. The sheriff was the often-armed representative of the king in a city, town or shire, responsible for collecting taxes and enforcing his laws. The church could hold ecclesiastical courts to resolve offences in its canon law and on its narrow territorial jurisdiction.
Justice for crimes sought in older forums and by private prosecution declined—instead the state courts, and increasingly the state paying lawyers to prosecute became the normal route to justice for matters that conceivably affect or endanger the community at large. In the 18th century European countries began operating police forces; in 1829 the first force formed in England which began its own prosecutions. Consequently criminal law had a more harmonised way of enforcement.
Historically in England, with no police forces and no prosecution service, the only route to prosecution was through private prosecutions brought by victims at their own expense or lawyers acting on their behalf. From 1829, as the police forces were formed, they began to take on the burden of bringing prosecutions against suspected criminals. [2]
Sir John Maule was appointed to be the first Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales in 1880, operating under the Home Office; his jurisdiction was only for decisions as to whether to prosecute in a very small number of difficult or important cases; once prosecution had been authorised, the matter was turned over to the Treasury Solicitor. Police forces continued to be responsible for the bulk of cases, sometimes referring difficult ones to the Director. [2]
In 1962 a Royal Commission recommended that police forces set up independent prosecution departments so as to avoid having the same officers investigate and prosecute cases, although technically the prosecuting police officers did so as private citizens. The Royal Commission's recommendation was not implemented by all police forces, however, and so in 1978, another Royal Commission was set up, this time headed by Sir Cyril Philips. It reported in 1981, recommending that a single unified Crown Prosecution Service with responsibility for all public prosecutions in England and Wales be set up. A White Paper was released in 1983, becoming the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, which established the CPS under the direction of the Director of Public Prosecutions, consisting of a merger of his old department with the existing police prosecution departments. It began in 1986.
The following common law offences once existed, but in England and Wales are now statutory (codified), part of other statutory offences, or completely abolished.
See also criminal libel for general information about the common law libel offences listed above.
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2011) |
See forgery:
See personation:
(Both repealed by the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005)
See cheating:
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2011) |
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2011) |
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2011) |
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2011) |
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2011) |
Champerty and maintenance are doctrines in common law jurisdictions that aim to preclude frivolous litigation:
The Riot Act, sometimes called the Riot Act 1714 or the Riot Act 1715, was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which authorised local authorities to declare any group of 12 or more people to be unlawfully assembled and order them to disperse or face punitive action. The act's full title was "An Act for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters", and it came into force on 1 August 1715. It was repealed in England and Wales by section 10(2) and Part III of Schedule 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967. Acts similar to the Riot Act passed into the laws of British colonies in Australia and North America, some of which remain in force today.
Sedition is speech or acts that instigate rebellion, rioting, or breach of the peace. A seditionist is one who engages in sedition.
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.
Blasphemous libel was originally an offence under the common law of England. Today, it is an offence under the common law of Northern Ireland, but has been abolished in England and Wales, and repealed in Canada and New Zealand. It consists of the publication of material which exposes the Christian religion to scurrility, vilification, ridicule, and contempt, with material that must have the tendency to shock and outrage the feelings of Christians. It is a form of criminal libel.
Criminal libel is a legal term, of English origin, which may be used with one of two distinct meanings, in those common law jurisdictions where it is still used.
Sedition and seditious libel were criminal offences under English common law, and are still criminal offences in Canada. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order: if the statement is in writing or some other permanent form it is seditious libel. Libel denotes a printed form of communication such as writing or drawing.
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 felon himself of that offence or another.
In the common law, embracery is the attempt to influence a juror corruptly to give their verdict in favour of one side or the other in a trial. This may be by promise, persuasions, entreaties, money, entertainments and the like.
In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. Criminal law in some countries or for some conspiracies may require that at least one overt act be undertaken in furtherance of that agreement, to constitute an offense. There is no limit to the number participating in the conspiracy and, in most countries, the plan itself is the crime, so there is no requirement that any steps have been taken to put the plan into effect. For the purposes of concurrence, the actus reus is a continuing one and parties may join the plot later and incur joint liability and conspiracy can be charged where the co-conspirators have been acquitted or cannot be traced. Finally, repentance by one or more parties does not affect liability but may reduce their sentence.
The law of Northern Ireland is the legal system of statute and common law operating in Northern Ireland since the partition of Ireland established Northern Ireland as a distinct jurisdiction in 1921. Prior to 1921, Northern Ireland was part of the same legal system as the rest of Ireland.
Defamatory libel was originally an offence under the common law of England. It has been established in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. It was or is a form of criminal libel, a term with which it is synonymous.
The Criminal Law Act 1967 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made some major changes to English criminal law, as part of wider liberal reforms by the Labour government elected in 1966. Most of it is still in force.
English criminal law concerns offences, their prevention and the consequences, in England and Wales. Criminal conduct is considered to be a wrong against the whole of a community, rather than just the private individuals affected. The state, in addition to certain international organisations, has responsibility for crime prevention, for bringing the culprits to justice, and for dealing with convicted offenders. The police, the criminal courts and prisons are all publicly funded services, though the main focus of criminal law concerns the role of the courts, how they apply criminal statutes and common law, and why some forms of behaviour are considered criminal. The fundamentals of a crime are a guilty act and a guilty mental state. The traditional view is that moral culpability requires that a defendant should have recognised or intended that they were acting wrongly, although in modern regulation a large number of offences relating to road traffic, environmental damage, financial services and corporations, create strict liability that can be proven simply by the guilty act.
Scots criminal law relies far more heavily on common law than in England and Wales. Scottish criminal law includes offences against the person of murder, culpable homicide, rape and assault, offences against property such as theft and malicious mischief, and public order offences including mobbing and breach of the peace. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statutes of the UK Parliament with some areas of criminal law, such as misuse of drugs and traffic offences appearing identical on both sides of the Border. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statute books of the Scottish Parliament such as the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 and Prostitution (Scotland) Act 2007 which only apply to Scotland. In fact, the Scots requirement of corroboration in criminal matters changes the practical prosecution of crimes derived from the same enactment. Corroboration is not required in England or in civil cases in Scotland. Scots law is one of the few legal systems that require corroboration.
The publication of an obscene libel was an offence under the common law of England. Prior to the abolition by section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 of the distinction between felony and misdemeanour, it was regarded as a misdemeanour. It has been abolished in England and Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It changed the law on coroners and criminal justice in England and Wales.
The Libel Act 1843, commonly known as Lord Campbell's Libel Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It enacted several important codifications of and modifications to the common law tort of libel.
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 Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 or CPIA is a piece of statutory legislation in the United Kingdom that regulates the procedures of investigating and prosecution of criminal offences.
Part of the common law series | ||
| Classes of crimes |  | |
| Inchoate offences | ||
| Defences | ||
| Offences against the person or state | ||
| Sexual offences | ||
| Criminal libel and kindred offences | ||
| Offences against property | ||
| Forgery, personation and cheating | ||
| Offences against justice | ||
| Death against family honour | ||
| Criminal behaviour |
| |
| ||
