Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

misprision of felony

Concealment or nondisclosure of someone else's felony. "In fact, whatever the law may be, it is not the general custom to prosecute for misprision of felony, even where a person who knows of a felony is questioned by the police and refuses to make a statement. Indeed, Stephen, writing in the nineteenth century, regarded the offence as 'practically obsolete'; and American courts have refused to recognise it as subsisting. But there have been four successful prosecutions in England during the last quarter-century ...." Glanville Williams, Criminal Law 424 (2d ed. 1961).