Treason

For other uses, see Treason (disambiguation).

"Traitor" redirects here. For other uses, see Traitor (disambiguation)

In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to one's nation or state. A person who betrays the nation of their citizenship and/or reneges on an oath of loyalty and in some way willfully cooperates with an enemy, is considered to be a traitor. Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." In many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aided or involved by such an endeavour.

Traitor may also mean a person who betrays (or is accused of betraying) their own political party, family, friends, ethnic group, religion, or other group to which they may belong. Often, such accusations are controversial and disputed, as the person may not identify with the group of which they are a member, or may otherwise disagree with the group leaders making the charge. See, for example, race traitor.

At times, the term "traitor" has been levelled as a political epithet, regardless of any verifiable treasonous action. In a civil war or insurrection, the winners may deem the losers to be traitors. Likewise the term "traitor" is used in heated political discussion – typically as a slur against political dissidents, or against officials in power who are perceived as failing to act in the best interest of their constituents. In certain cases, as with the German Dolchstoßlegende, the accusation of treason towards a large group of people can be a unifying political message.

Figures in history who are renowned for acts of treachery have subsequently had their names become synonymous with the word "traitor". Some examples are Michael Toy,Judas, Benedict Arnold, Pétain and Quisling.

Australia

The Australian Criminal Code defines treason as follows:

"A person commits an offence, called treason, if the person:

(a) causes the death of the Sovereign, the heir apparent of the Sovereign, the consort of the Sovereign, the Governor-General or the Prime Minister; or

(b) causes harm to the Sovereign, the Governor-General or the Prime Minister resulting in the death of the Sovereign, the Governor-General or the Prime Minister; or

(c) causes harm to the Sovereign, the Governor-General or the Prime Minister, or imprisons or restrains the Sovereign, the Governor-General or the Prime Minister; or

(d) levies war, or does any act preparatory to levying war, against the Commonwealth; or

(e) engages in conduct that assists by any means whatever, with intent to assist, an enemy:

(i) at war with the Commonwealth, whether or not the existence of a state of war has been declared; and

(ii) specified by Proclamation made for the purpose of this paragraph to be an enemy at war with the Commonwealth; or

(f) engages in conduct that assists by any means whatever, with intent to assist:

(i) another country; or

(ii) an organisation;

that is engaged in armed hostilities against the Australian Defence Force; or

(g) instigates a person who is not an Australian citizen to make an armed invasion of the Commonwealth or a Territory of the Commonwealth; or

(h) forms an intention to do any act referred to in a preceding paragraph and manifests that intention by an overt act."[1]

A person is not guilty of treason under paragraphs (e), (f) or (h) if their assistance or intended assistance is purely humanitarian in nature.

The penalty for treason is life imprisonment without being granted a parole. This results that the condemned must remain in prison until death.

Canada

The Canadian Criminal Code has two degrees of treason, called "high treason" and "treason." However both of these belong to the historical category of high treason, as opposed to petty treason which does not exist in Canadian law.

"High treason

(1) Every one commits high treason who, in Canada,

(a) kills or attempts to kill Her Majesty, or does her any bodily harm tending to death or destruction, maims or wounds her, or imprisons or restrains her;

(b) levies war against Canada or does any act preparatory thereto; or

(c) assists an enemy at war with Canada, or any armed forces against whom Canadian Forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between Canada and the country whose forces they are.

Treason

(2) Every one commits treason who, in Canada,

(a) uses force or violence for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Canada or a province;

(b) without lawful authority, communicates or makes available to an agent of a state other than Canada, military or scientific information or any sketch, plan, model, article, note or document of a military or scientific character that he knows or ought to know may be used by that state for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or defence of Canada;

(c) conspires with any person to commit high treason or to do anything mentioned in paragraph (a);

(d) forms an intention to do anything that is high treason or that is mentioned in paragraph (a) and manifests that intention by an overt act; or

(e) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in paragraph (b) or forms an intention to do anything mentioned in paragraph (b) and manifests that intention by an overt act."[2]

It is also illegal for a Canadian citizen to do any of the above outside Canada.

The penalty for high treason is life imprisonment. The penalty for treason is imprisonment up to a maximum of life, or up to 14 years for conduct under subsection (2)(b) or (e) in peacetime.

New Zealand

New Zealand has treason laws that are stipulated under the Crimes Act 1961. Section 73 of the Crimes Act reads as follows:

"Every one owing allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen in right of New Zealand commits treason who, within or outside New Zealand,—

(a) Kills or wounds or does grievous bodily harm to Her Majesty the Queen, or imprisons or restrains her; or

(b) Levies war against New Zealand; or

(c) Assists an enemy at war with New Zealand, or any armed forces against which New Zealand forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between New Zealand and any other country; or

(d) Incites or assists any person with force to invade New Zealand; or

(e) Uses force for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of New Zealand; or

(f) Conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in this section." [3]

The penalty is life imprisonment, except that the maximum for conspiracy is 14 years. Treason was the last capital crime in NZ law, with the death penalty not being revoked until 1989, years after it was abolished for murder.

Very few people have been prosecuted for the act of treason in New Zealand and none have been prosecuted in recent years. [4]

Republic of Ireland

Article 39 of the Constitution of Ireland states that "treason shall consist only in levying war against the State, or assisting any State or person or inciting or conspiring with any person to levy war against the State, or attempting by force of arms or other violent means to overthrow the organs of government established by the Constitution, or taking part or being concerned in or inciting or conspiring with any person to make or to take part or be concerned in any such attempt."

Until 1990 the penalty was death. Since then it has been life imprisonment, with parole in not less than forty years.

United Kingdom

See main article: High treason in the United Kingdom

The British law of treason is entirely statutory and has been so since the Treason Act 1351 (25 Edw. 3 St. 5 c. 2). The Act is written in Norman French, but is more commonly cited in its English translation.

The Treason Act 1351 has since been amended several times, and currently provides for four categories of treasonable offences, namely:

• "when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the King, or of our lady his Queen or of their eldest son and heir";
• "if a man do violate the King’s companion, or the King’s eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King’s eldest son and heir";
• "if a man do levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King’s enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be probably attainted of open deed by the people of their condition"; and
• "if a man slea the chancellor, treasurer, or the King’s justices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assise, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places, doing their offices".

Another Act, the Treason Act 1702 (1 Anne stat. 2 c. 21), provides for a fifth category of treason, namely:

• "if any person or persons ... shall endeavour to deprive or hinder any person who shall be the next in succession to the crown ... from succeeding after the decease of her Majesty (whom God long preserve) to the imperial crown of this realm and the dominions and territories thereunto belonging".

By virtue of the Treason Act 1708, the law of treason in Scotland is the same as the law in England, save that in Scotland counterfeiting the Great Seal of Scotland and the slaying of the Lords of Session and Lords of Justiciary were adjudged treason until 1945. Treason is a reserved matter about which the Scottish Parliament is prohibited from legislating.

The penalty for treason was changed from death to a maximum of imprisonment for life in 1998 under the Crime And Disorder Act. Before 1998, the death penalty was mandatory, subject to the royal prerogative of mercy. William Joyce was the last person to be put to death for treason, in 1946.

As to who can commit treason, it depends on the ancient notion of allegiance. As such, British citizens (and British subjects who were Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies) wherever they may be owe allegiance to the Queen, as do aliens present in the United Kingdom at the time of the treasonable act (except diplomats and foreign invading forces), those who hold a British passport however obtained, and by aliens who - having lived in Britain and gone abroad again - have left behind family and belongings.

International influence

The Treason Act 1695 enacted, among other things, a rule that treason could be proved only in a trial by the evidence of two witnesses to the same overt act. Nearly one hundred years later this rule was incorporated into the US Constitution. It also provided for a three year time limit on bringing prosecutions for treason (except for assassinating the king), another rule which has been imitated in some common law countries. The Treason Act 1795 made it treason to imprison, restrain or wound the king. Although this law was repealed in the United Kingdom in 1998 it still continues to apply in some Commonwealth countries.

United States

To avoid the abuses of the English law (including executions by Henry VIII of those who criticized his repeated marriages), treason was specifically defined in the United States Constitution, the only crime so defined. Article Three defines treason as levying war against the United States or "in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort," and requires the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court for conviction. Congress has, at times, passed statutes creating treason-like offense with different names (such as sedition in the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, or espionage and sabotage in the 1917 Espionage Act) that do not require the testimony of two witnesses and have a much broader definition than Article Three treason. For example, some well-known spies have been convicted of espionage rather than treason.

The Constitution does not itself create the offense; it only restricts the definition. The crime is prohibited by legislation passed by Congress. Therefore the United States Code at 18 U.S.C. § 2381 states "whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States." The requirement of testimony of two witnesses was inherited from the British Treason Act 1695.

In the history of the United States there have been fewer than 40 federal prosecutions for treason and even fewer convictions. Several men were convicted of treason in connection with the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion but were pardoned by President George Washington. The most famous treason trial, that of Aaron Burr in 1807 (See Burr conspiracy), resulted in acquittal. Politically motivated attempts to convict opponents of the Jeffersonian Embargo Acts and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 all failed.

After the American Civil War, no person involved with the Confederate States of America was tried for treason, though a number of leading Confederates (including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee) were indicted. Those who had been indicted received a blanket amnesty issued by President Andrew Johnson when he left office in 1869.

Several people generally thought of as traitors in the United States, including Jonathan Pollard, the Walker Family, Robert Soblen, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were not prosecuted for treason, but rather for espionage. John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" fighter in Afghanistan, was also thought of as a traitor by many. However, instead of being tried for treason, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder US nationals, aiding the Taliban and terrorist offenses relating to Al Qaeda, even though he joined the Taliban during the period before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Senator Joseph McCarthy referred to "twenty years of treason" (1933–1953, the administrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman) when numerous communist spy rings involving hundreds of agents were operating inside the United States government. As documented in the VENONA papers, these rings included the Rosenbergs ring, the Perlo group, the Nathan Silvermaster group, the Harold Ware group, the Jacob Golos group, the Karl group, etc. (During World War II, when some of this activity occurred, the United States and the USSR were allies in the war against Germany, and the United States and the Soviet Union were never at war.)

Thanks to the opening of Soviet archives in the 1990s, much more has been learned about these rings which were more widespread than was known at the time. For example, it has been revealed that U.S. Representative Samuel Dickstein was on the Soviet payroll for several years while he was investigating anti-Communist activities, including the little-known Business Plot against FDR. Claims have been made that the communist spying even included J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project and known for his leftist politics, who had his security clearance revoked in the mid-1950s. In fact, there was no evidence in the archives substantially linking Oppenheimer to any acts of espionage or treason, although this theory has been promoted by various right-wing and anti-Semitic organizations.

Most states have provisions in their constitutions or statutes similar to those in the U.S. Constitution. There have been only two successful prosecutions for treason on the state level, that of Thomas Dorr in Rhode Island and that of John Brown in Virginia although his raid and trial took place in Jefferson County in what is now West Virginia.

In 1964, the anti-Communist activist John A. Stormer wrote a book called None Dare Call It Treason, which unexpectedly sold seven million copies with little or no advertising. The title phrase comes from a 17th-century epigram by John Harington:

Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

This phrase refers to treason defined as attempting to overthrow the government. Since its popularization by Stormer, it has been reused and paraphrased many times and has become part of popular culture.

As of October 11, 2006 a federal grand jury has charged American al-Qaeda member Adam Yahiye Gadahn with treason.

List of people convicted of treason, by country

Main article: List of people convicted of treason

See also

• Capital punishment in the United Kingdom
• Capital punishment in the United States
• Collaboration during World War II
• Dhimmi, pejorative sense
• High treason
• List of secret agents, more cases that could be here
• Misprision of treason
• Petty treason
• Puppet government
• Quisling
• Benedict Arnold
• Ephialtes
• Kuusinen
• Fifth column
• Defection

External links

• British Treason Law

Further reading

• Elaine Shannon and Ann Blackman, The Spy Next Door : The Extraordinary Secret Life of Robert Philip Hanssen, The Most Damaging FBI Agent in US History, Little, Brown and Company, 2002, ISBN 0-316-71821-1
• Ben-Yehuda, Nachman, "Betrayals and Treason. Violations of trust and Loyalty." Westview Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8133-9776-6