Treason

In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to one's nation. A person who betrays the nation of their citizenship and/or reneges on an oath of loyalty and in some way willfully cooperates with an enemy, is considered to be a traitor. Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]."

United Kingdom

The English law of treason is entirely statutory and has been so since the Treason Act 1351 (25 Edw. 3 St. 5) c. 2, which is unusual in English Criminal Law. The Act is written in Norman French, but is more commonly cited in its English translation.

The Treason Act 1351 has since been amended several times, and currently provides for four categories of treasonable offences, namely:

"when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the King, or of our lady his Queen or of their eldest son and heir";

"if a man do violate the King’s companion, or the King’s eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King’s eldest son and heir";

"if a man do levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King’s enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be probably attainted of open deed by the people of their condition"; and

"if a man slea the chancellor, treasurer, or the King’s justices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assise, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places, doing their offices".

In addition to the crime of treason, the Treason Felony Act 1848 created various offences known as treason felony. Under the traditional categorisation of offences into treason, felonies and misdemeanours, treason felony was merely another form of felony. While the common law offences of misprision and compounding were abolished in respect of felonies (including treason felony) by the Criminal Law Act 1967, which abolished the distinction between misdemeanour and felony, misprision and compounding of treason are still offences under the common law.

By virtue of the Treason Act 1708, the law of treason in Scotland is the same as the law in England, save that in Scotland the slaying of the Lords of Session and Lords of Justiciary is adjudged treason.

The penalty for treason is now imprisonment for life.

History

The Treason Act 1351 formerly distinguished two varieties of treason: high treason and petty treason. High treason was punishable by death; if executed, the traitor's property would escheat to the Crown. Individuals convicted of petty treason surrendered property to their immediate Lord. The murder of one's lawful superior, i.e. a servant killing his master, a wife her husband or anyone his or her prelate, amounted to petty treason. High treason covered acts that constituted a serious threat to the stability or continuity of the state.

The fifth category of treasonable offences, namely counterfeiting, was abolished by the Forgery Act 1830. The 1351 Act originally also provided that if new treasonable acts not listed in the Act arose they could be referred to the King and Parliament, who would determine whether the act constituted treason or merely some other felony.

The punishment for treason was in former times typically an extended and especially cruel death. This remained unreformed until the 19th century. Previously, any method (in theory) could be legally used to carry out the death penalty —most popular in the middle-ages were hanging, drawing and quartering.

The last death sentence for treason in the United Kingdom was given in 1945 and carried out by hanging in 1946. The death penalty for treason was finally abolished in the United Kingdom in 1998 (see capital punishment in the United Kingdom).

United States

To avoid the abuses of the English law, treason was specifically defined in the United States Constitution. Article Three defines treason as only levying war against the United States or "in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort," and requires the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court for conviction. This safeguard may not be foolproof since Congress could pass a statute creating treason-like offences with different names (such as sedition, bearing arms against the state, etc.) which do not require the testimony of two witnesses, and have a much wider definition than Article Three treason. For example, some well-known spies have generally been convicted of espionage rather than treason. In the United States Code the penalty ranges from "shall suffer death" to "shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

In the history of the United States there have been fewer than forty federal prosecutions for treason and even fewer convictions. Several men were convicted of treason in connection with the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion but were pardoned by George Washington. The most famous treason trial, that of Aaron Burr in 1807, resulted in acquittal. Politically motivated attempts to convict opponents of the Jeffersonian Embargo Acts and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 all failed. Significantly, after the American Civil War, no person involved with the Confederate States of America was charged with treason, and only one major Confederate official, the commandant of the Andersonville prison, who was charged with war crimes, was charged with anything at all.

Several people generally thought of as traitors in the United States, such as the Walker Family, or Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were not prosecuted for treason per se, but rather for espionage.

Treason has become largely a wartime phenomenon in the 20th century, and the treason cases of World Wars One and Two were of minor significance. Most states have provisions in their constitutions or statutes similar to those in the U.S. Constitution. There have been only two successful prosecutions for treason on the state level, that of Thomas Dorr in Rhode Island and that of John Brown in Virginia.

In 1964, an author named John A. Stormer wrote a book considered a backstairs political classic and titled it None Dare Call It Treason—the book unexpectedly sold seven million copies with little or no advertising. It was revised and reissued by the original author in 1990. The title phrase comes from a 17th-century epigram by John Harington: "Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?/For if it prosper, none dare call it treason." Since its popularization by Stormer, it has been reused and paraphrased many times and has become part of popular culture.

List of persons convicted or accused by some of treason, by country

As one person's traitor is another's patriot, any list is by nature highly subjective —even for those convicted of treason. In a civil war or insurrection the winners may deem the losers as traitors. Likewise the term "traitor" is used in heated political discussion —typically as a slur against political dissidents. In certain cases, as with the Nazi Dolchstosslegende, the accusation of treason towards a large group of people can be a unifying political message.

Treason

United Kingdom

History

United States

List of persons convicted or accused by some of treason, by country

See also

Further reading