By Prof. Nathan Protus Uzorma
Felonies are serious crimes against the State, which are punishable by death or by incarceration in a prison for a year or more. They are acts that the society considers intolerable and thus condemned. Examples of crimes of felony are kidnapping, abduction, obtainment of goods by false pretences, burglary, assault occasioning harm, conspiracy of all sorts, conspiracy to murder, reception of stolen property, store-breaking etc. Felony is prevalent in all forms of human society even in rural settings. The Nigerian Criminal Code categorises them as highest typology of crime after simple offences and misdemeanours.
A felony is a serious crime in some countries. The term originated from English common law where felonies were originally crimes that involved the confiscation of a convicted person’s land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanours. Many common law countries today have abolished the felony-misdemeanour distinction and replaced it with other distinctions such as between indictable offences and summary offences. In many common law jurisdictions (e.g. the Republic of Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Australia, New Zealand), an indictable offence is an offence which can only be tried on indictment after a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is a prima facie case to answer or by a grand jury (in contrast to a summary offence).
In a country like the United States, a crime of similar severity is a felony, although it also comes after an indictment. Similarly, in England and Wales, the expression ‘indictable offence’ means an offence which, if committed by an adult, is tryable on indictment, whether it is exclusively so tryable or tryable in either way. The term indictable, in its application to offences, is to be construed accordingly.
Nevertheless, in Britain for instance an either way offence allows the defendant to choose between trial by jury on indictment in a High Court or Court of Appeal (Crown Court) and summary trial in the Magistrate Court. However, the election may be overruled by the Magistrate Court if the facts suggest that the sentencing powers of a Magistrate Court would be inadequate to reflect the seriousness of the offence. Some offences such as murder, armed robbery and rape are considered so serious that they can only be tried on indictment at the High Court and the Appeal Court where the widest range of sentencing powers is available to the Judge.
On the other hand, a summary offence is a crime in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded against summarily, without the right to a jury trial and or indictment (required for an indictable offence). In the United States, for instance, there are certain minor offences that may be proceeded against summarily, and without a jury. Any crime punishable by more than six months imprisonment must have some means for a jury trial.
Thus, a person convicted in a court of law for a felony crime, is known as a felon. In the United States, where felony-misdemeanour distinction is still widely applied, the Federal Government defines a felony as a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year. If punishable by exactly one year or less, it is classified as a misdemeanour. Similar to felonies in some civil law countries (Italy, etc.) are delicts, whereas in others (France, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland etc.) crimes are for more serious offences while delicts are for less serious crimes.
Nevertheless, there are two ways in which a crime could be classified as felony: In accordance with subject matter and in accordance with its seriousness. Most common felonies considered so in accordance with their subject matter include: Robbery, rape, arson, murder, manslaughter, burglary, frauds, perjury, kidnapping, theft, treason, vandalism, production of certain types and quantities of illegal drugs (such as Virginia for cocaine, heroin).
Broadly, felonies can be characterized as either violent or non-violent. Violent offences usually contain some elements of force or a threat of force against a person. Some offences, though similar in nature, may be felonies or misdemeanours depending on the circumstances. For example, the illegal manufacturing, distribution or possession of controlled substances may be a felony, although possession of small amounts of such may be only a misdemeanour. Similarly, the possession of a deadly weapon may be generally legal, but carrying the same weapon into a restricted area such as a school may be viewed as a serious offence, regardless of whether there is intent to use the weapon or not.
In common law countries (- By common law offences we mean crimes under English criminal law and the related criminal law of the member countries in the Commonwealth of Nations), they are offences of the common law which are developed entirely by the courts over the years, and for which there is no actual legislation), participants in a felony are divided into four basic categories: (1) First-degree principals, those who actually committed the crime in question; (2) Second-degree principals, aiders and abettors present at the scene of the crime; (3) Accessories before the fact, aiders and abettors who helped the principal before the basic criminal event took place; and (4) Accessories after the fact- persons who helped the principal after the basic criminal event took place.
Similarly, in classification by seriousness a felony may be punishable with imprisonment for one or more years or death in the case of the most serious felonies, such as murder. Earlier in the British and American legal systems (around 1776), felonies were crimes for which the punishment was either death or forfeiture of property. All felonies are thus considered as serious crimes, but the concerns of proportionality (- that the punishment fits the crime) have in modern times prompted legislatures to require or permit the imposition of less serious punishments, ranging from lesser terms of imprisonment to the substitution of a jail sentence or even the suspension of all incarceration contingent upon a defendant’s successful completion of probation. Standards for measurement of an offence’s seriousness include attempts to quantitatively estimate and compare the effects of a crime upon its specific victims or upon the society in general. These two criteria are the basis for measuring a felony.
In some state laws, all or most felonies are placed into one of various classes according to their seriousness and their potential punishment upon conviction. The number of classifications and the corresponding crimes vary by nation (and the prevailing social system and anomalies in it) and are also determined by the legislature. Usually, the legislature also determines the maximum punishment allowable for each felony class; doing so avoids the necessity of defining specific sentences for every possible crime. Now let us examine Hi-tech or cyber crimes.
Cyber crime encompasses any criminal act dealing with computers and networks (called hijacking). Additionally, cyber crime also includes traditional crimes conducted through the internet. For example, hate crimes, telemarketing and Internet fraud, identity theft, and credit card account thefts are considered to be cyber crimes when the illegal activities are committed through the use of a computer and the Internet.
They also imply any type of crime committed by the use of technological and scientific discoveries, notably computers and sophisticated ammunitions. According to Stanley U. Okoroji, “it is committed by expert ICT and Advanced Fraudsters through cyber means or internet, electronic gadgets as in Banks, Mobile Phone (GSM) Operations, satellite monitors…”
Hi-tech crimes such as payment card frauds, cyber-terrorism, computer virus attacks, etc., can affect all levels of the society. Prostitution, child-trafficking and other kinds of sexual aberration acts have gone digital today by hi-tech effects. Also, today, pornography, lesbianism and homosexuality are projected mostly through hi-tech and cyber means. These modes of living out ones sexuality often go contrary to the societal ordinances, and thus become crimes.
Internet frauds are growing day after day. Prevailing ones in the contemporary cyber systems and Hi-techs include: Spam and phishing, pharming, spoofing, etc. Spam is becoming more than a nuisance for internet users, as criminals use it in sophisticated ways to commit financial crime and defraud consumers, cripple computer systems and release viruses. In the same vein, phishing- a situation whereby a criminal attempts to acquire via e-mail or instant messaging (as SMS) sensitive information such as passwords or credit details by pretending to be legitimate business representative. Once this information is got, the criminal can commit fraud and even money laundering. Modern spaming, is gradually infiltrating Nigeria today as influences from Europe, America, South Africa, Burkina Faso, etc, include the following:
Spoofing: This simply means to fool. In networking, the term is used to describe a variety of ways in which hardware and software can be fooled. Such ways include: IP spoofing- A technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers, whereby the intruder sends messages to a computer with an IP address-devised hi-tech means. The message indicates that the message is coming from a trusted host. To engage in IP spoofing, a hacker first uses a variety of techniques to find an IP address of a trusted host and then modify the packet headers so that it appears as if the packets are coming from that the original owner. However, new routers and modern firewall arrangements can offer solid protections against this IP spoofing.