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The present research is devoted to the discussion of felony and misdemeanor as the two main categories of the criminal law at present time. The discussion will be based on real case examples, and will be aimed at defining which crimes should be considered a felony, and which should be considered a misdemeanor. Criminal Law American criminal law presents various classifications of criminal delinquencies. The most widely spread legislative classification is the division of crimes into the two big groups: felonies the most dangerous crimes, and less dangerous ones misdemeanors. The base of this classification is in purely formal criteria the character of punishment implied for each kind of delinquencies. The main problem of this classification is that it is often difficult to make the distinct difference between the felony and the misdemeanor.
However, according to the general rule, if taking into account such punishment as incarceration, felony is a delinquency being punished by more than one year of incarceration in prison, while misdemeanor is usually punished by less than one year incarceration in jail or a financial fine. Besides, the bigger portion of the state criminal laws point out other criteria for defining the differences of a felony and a misdemeanor. For example, California states that felony is a delinquency which is punished by prison incarceration or death penalty, while misdemeanor is usually punished by the financial fine of no more than $ 1, 000 or no more than six months jail incarceration. (Thomas & Bishop, 1987) We have got here three different criminal cases, which can be described as the following: Three securities brokers agree in a conversation to aggressively sell a certain stock and then sell their own shares at a profit after the share price increases to a certain dollar value. However, one of the brokers later decides not to go along with the plan. Is this broker guilty of a crime?
An executive submits fictitious invoices from a shell company, which are paid. An employee sells a customer list to a competitor. Speaking about the first case, there should be taken into account the following factors: due to the unexpected refusal of the partner other participants of the agreements have carried financial losses but the main contradiction here is that the agreement was oral, and not written; simultaneously, there exists a possibility of oral agreements between partners, which later can be disputed in the court; due to the fact that the described refusal has not caused huge financial losses or public fraud, this action cannot be considered a felony and is not subject to our research. (Robinson, 1997) The second case of submitting fictitious invoices to the company with them being paid is evidently a felony, carrying the basic criteria for defining such type of crime. Such types of financial crimes are considered as very serious delinquencies, having caused major financial losses for the company, and are to be punished with long terms of incarceration. This case will be a subject of our research and investigation. Another example of such crime can be described as follows.
Larry D. Jones, 59 years old, has been arrested in Ohio being indicted of 22 counts of bank fraud and 17 counts of money laundering which is connected with a credit line, - credits which he received for the new-defunct corporation. Jones has been claimed to be the principal shareholder and the President of his company, through which he has created a scheme of obtaining and drawing the line of credit through false and fraudulent misrepresentations and concealment of material facts pertaining the companys financial condition. To make this system work, Jones used a number of internal bank transfers.
This crime is definitely a fraud, as it has become the cause of serious financial losses for the bank, being intentional with thoroughly developed scheme. (web) In defining the level of punishment for a felony (when it is already determined that the committed crime is referred to the class of felonies) several states take away from the problem of distinguishing between felonies and misdemeanors, dividing all crimes into several different classes according to the seriousness of the crime. (Jackson, 1997) In defining the differences between felonies and misdemeanors, the major sources mostly refer to the kind of punishment as the main criteria, while on the contrary, there should be created exact criteria for determining whether the committed crime refers to the felony or to the misdemeanor, through investigating the peculiarities of the crime, its participants and their intentions and causes. The third case of the work relates to the employee selling the list of the consumers to the competitive enterprise. This case can be viewed from the different points of view, and to which type of crime it will be referred, will depend on the way the company itself handles it. If it claims serious financial losses caused by the employees actions, together with the fact that these actions carried intentional character and demanded creation of certain kind of scheme to carry out the idea, the crime will be referred to the felony and will also be subject to our research and investigation. Simultaneously, this action might be referred by the company to the class of misdemeanors, resulting in losing by the guilty employee in several privileges, as the right to take certain position in the company, or dismissal with compensating to the company a certain sum of financial fine. (Single, 1981) Our work this year will be certainly concentrated around the investigation of the second case with the involvement of financial frauds with serious losses and consequences to the bank. Several factors will have to be taken into account while investigating the case was it forced or non-forced felony, and whether it was the first felony committed by the indicted person, etc.
In any case, the punishment for this crime will be certainly incarceration into the prison for the term more than 1 year (and probably even 5 years), depending on all the circumstances involved into the case. References (1) Haskell, M. & Yablonsky, L. (1970). Crime and delinquency. Chicago, 5 (2) Jackson, Bruce. (1984). Law and disorder.
Criminal justice in America. Chicago: University of Illinois press, 11 - 12 (3) Robinson, Paul. (1997). Criminal Law. New York: Aspen & Business, 169 (4) Single, Jay A. (1981). Understanding criminal law.
Boston, 57 (5) Thomas, Ch. W. & Bishop, D. M. (1987) Criminal law. Understanding basic principles. Sage Publications, 51. (6) web
Free research essays on topics related to: criminal law, financial losses, felony, misdemeanor, one year
Research essay sample on Financial Losses Criminal Law
