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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Felonies

Felony \Fel"o*ny\, n.; pl. Felonies. [OE. felonie cruelty, OF. felonie, F. f['e]lonie treachery, malice. See Felon, n.]

  1. (Feudal Law) An act on the part of the vassal which cost him his fee by forfeiture.
    --Burrill.

  2. (O.Eng.Law) An offense which occasions a total forfeiture either lands or goods, or both, at the common law, and to which capital or other punishment may be added, according to the degree of guilt.

  3. A heinous crime; especially, a crime punishable by death or imprisonment.

    Note: Forfeiture for crime having been generally abolished in the United States, the term felony, in American law, has lost this point of distinction; and its meaning, where not fixed by statute, is somewhat vague and undefined; generally, however, it is used to denote an offense of a high grade, punishable either capitally or by a term of imprisonment. In Massachusetts, by statute, any crime punishable by death or imprisonment in the state prison, and no other, is a felony; so in New York. the tendency now is to obliterate the distinction between felonies and misdemeanors; and this has been done partially in England, and completely in some of the States of the Union. The distinction is purely arbitrary, and its entire abolition is only a question of time.

    Note: There is no lawyer who would undertake to tell what a felony is, otherwise than by enumerating the various kinds of offenses which are so called. originally, the word felony had a meaning: it denoted all offenses the penalty of which included forfeiture of goods; but subsequent acts of Parliament have declared various offenses to be felonies, without enjoining that penalty, and have taken away the penalty from others, which continue, nevertheless, to be called felonies, insomuch that the acts so called have now no property whatever in common, save that of being unlawful and purnishable.
    --J. S. Mill.

    To compound a felony. See under Compound, v. t.

Wiktionary
felonies

n. (plural of felony English)

Usage examples of "felonies".

Back when the world's most famous whistle-blower produced tapes proving the president of the United States had committed a slew of felonies, the Left was somewhat muted in its enthusiasm for female truth-tellers.

Back when Clinton could choose Supreme Court justices, the New York Times sneered about those yahoo Republicans thinking perjury, obstruction of justice, and numerous other felonies committed by the president constituted impeachable conduct.

But now Broder has written that of all the scandals, felonies, lies, and general slime to come out of the Clinton White House, "nothing came close to matching Clinton's exercise of the pardon authority.

Once we were shocked by the suggestion that the president could be shown to have committed felonies and still continue in office.

And then hoist on its own petard of multiple felonies and enough flat-put crime to put anybody who'd admit to this kind of stinking behavior in the Nevada State Prison until 1984.

I have always been careful not to commit any felonies right in front of them, but other than that I have never made much of an effort to adjust my behavior around Jimmy Carter or anyone else in his family -- including his 78-year-old mother, Miss Lillian, who is the only member of the Carter family I could comfortably endorse for the presidency, right now, with no reservations at all.

In an era when the Vice President of the United States held court in Washington to accept payoffs from his former vassals in the form of big wads of one hundred dollar bills -- and when the President himself routinely held secretly tape-recorded meetings with his top aides in the Oval Office to plot illegal wiretaps, political burglaries and other gross felonies in the name of a "silent majority," it was hard to feel anything more than a flash of high, nervous humor at the sight of some acid-bent lawyer setting fire to a Judge's front yard at four o'clock in the morning.

But with three other felonies on your record, the computers opted for deportation.

Nor will you be free to commit new felonies upon serving your time or being paroled.

You were deported because you had supposedly committed four felonies and the legal computers automatically ordered your deportation.

The state’s private contractor, ChoicePoint, generated a list of 1,704 names of people who, earlier in their lives, were convicted of felonies in Illinois and Ohio.

In May 2000, using a list provided by DBT, Harris’s office ordered counties to purge 8,000 Florida voters who had committed felonies in Texas.

ChoicePoint DBT and Harris then sent out “corrected” lists, including the names of 437 voters who had indeed committed felonies in Texas.

But the best proof of the intention, is the act of passing it, and why not leave room for repentance here, as in other cases of felonies intended?

Treasons, therefore, not against the King's person immediately, petty treasons and felonies, seem to have been the cases where it was allowed.