Civil death
Appearance
Civil death (
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
banishment.[5]
United States
In the U.S., the
disenfranchisement of felons[6] 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.[7] Civil death as such remains part of the law in New York, Rhode Island, and the Virgin Islands.[8][9]
China
The deprivation of political rights is a supplementary punishment defined in the Criminal Law of
counterrevolution, there are situations where the deprivation of political rights can be issued on its own or for longer periods:[10]
- For those sentenced to life imprisonment or capital punishment, the deprivation of political rights is lifelong;
- Those who assemble a crowd for "beating, smashing, or looting" can be issued an exclusive punishment of deprivation of political rights.
Political rights
Political rights are defined in the Criminal Law as:[11]
- the right to vote and to stand for election;
- the rights of of demonstration;
- the right to hold a position in a state organization; and
- the right to hold a leading position in any state-owned company, enterprise, institution or people's organization.
See also
- Disfranchisement
- Loss of rights due to felony conviction
- Sex offender registries in the United States
- Social death
- Ghosts… of the Civil Dead
- Roman Law
References
Citations
- ^ "CIVILITER MORTUUS : on Law Dictionary". www.law-dictionary.org. Archived from the original on 2010-07-07. Retrieved 2008-12-16.
- ^ See e.g. Interdiction of F.T.E., 594 So.2d 480 (La. App. 2d Cir. 1992).
- ^ 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
- ^ a b Article "Death, Civil;" Encyclopædia Americana, 1830 ed, page 138
- ^ Saunders 1970, p. 989.
- ^ Greenhouse, Linda (July 29, 2010). "Voting Behind Bars". The New York Times.
- ^ Gabriel J. Chin, The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Conviction, 160 U. Penn. L. Rev. 1789 (2012)
- ^ Chin, Gabriel "Jack" (June 7, 2018). "Civil death lives!". Collateral Consequences Resource Center. Retrieved 2020-10-05.
- ^ "Civil Death Laws: When Life is Death | Criminal Legal News". www.criminallegalnews.org. Retrieved 2020-10-05.
- ^ "The Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China". Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 73 (1): 147–148, 161. Spring 1982. Retrieved 2024-05-07.
- ^ "中华人民共和国刑法-英汉对照法律英语". www.chinalawedu.com. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
Sources
- Saunders, Harry David (1970). "Civil Death - A New Look at an Ancient Doctrine". William & Mary Law Review. 11: 988–1003.
External links
- New International Encyclopedia. 1905. .