the.com/treason
The only crime defined in the Constitution, because kings kept abusing the word.
means The act of betraying your own country, typically by making war against it or siding with its enemies.
from From Anglo-Norman 'treson' / Old French 'traïson,' rooted in Latin 'traditio' — a handing over, a betrayal — from 'tradere,' to deliver up, hand across. The same Latin root eventually also gives us 'tradition,' a strange sibling: one word for what's dutifully handed down, another for what's treacherously handed over. The legal sense of betraying one's sovereign or state was already well established by the time English borrowed it in the medieval period.
- legal bar
- requires two witnesses to the same overt act
- rarely charged
- fewer than 30 federal prosecutions in US history
- narrow scope
- only applies to levying war or aiding enemies
- max penalty
- death, or five years and a fine