Civil death explained

Civil death (Latin: civiliter mortuus)[1] is the loss of all or almost all civil rights by a person due to a conviction for a felony or due to an act by the government of a country that results in the loss of civil rights. It is usually inflicted on persons convicted of crimes against the state or adults determined by a court to be legally incompetent because of mental disability.[2]

Medieval Europe

In medieval Europe, felons lost all civil rights upon their conviction. This civil death often led to actual death, since anyone could kill and injure a felon with impunity.[3] Under the Holy Roman Empire, a person declared civilly dead was referred to as vogelfrei ('free as a bird') and could even be killed since they were completely outside the law.[4]

Historically outlawry, that is, declaring a person as an outlaw, was a common form of civil death.[4]

Under early English common law a living person could under certain conditions be considered legally dead. The three categories generally recognized as resulting in civil death were profession ("monastery death"), abjuration, and banishment.

United States

In the U.S., the disenfranchisement of felons[5] has been called a form of civil death, as has being subjected to collateral consequences in general. The contention is not generally supported by legal scholars.[6] Civil death as such remains part of the law in New York, Rhode Island, and the Virgin Islands.[7] [8]

China

The deprivation of political rights is a supplementary punishment defined in the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China. While this punishment is usually issued for at least one but not more than five years in conjunction with other crimes, such as counterrevolution, there are situations where the deprivation of political rights can be issued on its own or for longer periods:[9]

Political rights

Political rights are defined in the Criminal Law as:[10]

See also

References

Sources

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: CIVILITER MORTUUS : on Law Dictionary. www.law-dictionary.org. 2008-12-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20100707191058/http://www.law-dictionary.org/CIVILITER+MORTUUS.asp?q=CIVILITER+MORTUUS. 2010-07-07. dead.
  2. See e.g. Interdiction of F.T.E., 594 So.2d 480(La. App. 2d Cir. 1992).
  3. Manza, Jeff and Uggen, Christopher. Punishment and Democracy: Disenfranchisement of Nonincarcerated Felons in the United States. 'Perspectives on Politics.' Page 492. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3688812
  4. Article "Death, Civil;" Encyclopædia Americana, 1830 ed, page 138
  5. News: Voting Behind Bars . The New York Times . Linda . Greenhouse . July 29, 2010.
  6. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2072736 Gabriel J. Chin, The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Conviction, 160 U. Penn. L. Rev. 1789 (2012)
  7. Web site: Chin. Gabriel "Jack". June 7, 2018. Civil death lives!. 2020-10-05. Collateral Consequences Resource Center. en-US.
  8. Web site: Civil Death Laws: When Life is Death Criminal Legal News. 2020-10-05. www.criminallegalnews.org.
  9. Spring 1982. The Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 73. 1. 147-148, 161. 2024-05-07.
  10. Web site: 中华人民共和国刑法-英汉对照法律英语. www.chinalawedu.com. 2019-05-28.