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William Bruce Mumford, convicted of treason and hanged in 1862 for tearing down a United States flag during the American Civil War. Walter Allen was convicted of treason on September 16, 1922 for taking part in the 1921 Miner's March against the coal companies and the U.S. Army at Blair Mountain, West Virginia. He was sentenced to 10 years and ...
The new law offered a narrower definition of treason than had existed before and split the old feudal offence into two classes. [21] [22] Petty treason referred to the killing of a master (or lord) by his servant, a husband by his wife, or a prelate by his clergyman. Men guilty of petty treason were drawn and hanged, whereas women were burned ...
A 1638 case is less clear: it involved a legal dispute between Ralf Claxton and Richard Lilburne (the latter the father of John Lilburne). The king again stepped in, and judges acted to delay proceedings. [19] [18] No record survives of the outcome of the case, but no contemporary account speaks of the trial by battle actually taking place.
Petty treason or petit treason was an offence under the common law of England in which a person killed or otherwise violated the authority of a social superior, other than the king. In England and Wales , petty treason ceased to be a distinct offence from murder by virtue of the Offences against the Person Act 1828 . [ 1 ]
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. [1] This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state.
In the Middle Ages, blinding was used as a penalty for treason or as a means of rendering a political opponent unable to rule and lead an army in war. [7] The blinding of Byzantine general Belisarius (c. 500 – 565) at the order of the Emperor Justinian is probably apocryphal.
It was not treason to repair a statue of the emperor which had decayed from age, to hit such a statue with a stone thrown by chance, to melt down such a statue if unconsecrated, to use mere verbal insults against the emperor, to fail in keeping an oath sworn by the emperor or to decide a case contrary to an imperial constitution. [1]
In cases where the defendant was accused on the basis of one or more specific facts, the defendant was sent to the ordeal upon the verdict of the hundred jury alone. In cases where the defendant was accused fama publica, the agreement of the hundred jurors and the vills as to the defendant's suspicion was required to send him to the ordeal. [50]