- My fellow LHBlogger Karen Tani discusses her recent foreword to the Harvard Law Review's issue on the Supreme Court on David Schleicher and Samuel Moyn's Digging a Hole podcast. DRE
- The latest in the "In Black America" series is a tribute to the late John Hope Franklin (KUT 90.5).
- The Loudoun County, Virginia courthouse has been renamed to honor Charles Hamilton Houston and been designated as a national historical landmark (WaPo).
- Orin Kerr on English common-law on emergency entry into a home and the Fourth Amendment (Volokh Conspiracy).
- The Newsletter of the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit for January 2025 is here.
- Michelle Adams, will discuss her book, The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North, at the Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan on January 16 from 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm EST (ACS).
- President Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to the son of Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi in honor of his mother, the litigant in Ex parte Endo (Pacific Citizen). H/t Eric Muller.
- "The John Carter Brown Library invites applications for a 2 year postdoctoral position helping to coordinate the library’s programs and events to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States." More.
- A review, in Swedish, of Allen D. Boyer and Mark Nicholls's The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History" by Boris Benulic in The Epoch Times. English translation after the jump.
Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.
"Is Treason Becoming An Unfashionable Crime?"
Treason may seem like a fairly easy crime to define. Or is it? Not at all, answer two historians who have delved into the issue from a British perspective. The result is a work well worth studying even for those who live in Sweden.
Sometimes I read works that I wouldn't mention at dinner if my hostess asked: "Have you read any interesting new books?"
Then I avoid mentioning, for example, the historians Allen D. Boyer and Mark Nicholls' "The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History" (Routledge). There is a risk that the hostess will fall asleep as soon as she hears the title.
I threw myself into the book because I am working on an essay on the history of the British spy thriller. A work about treason in the British Isles over the past 1,000 years is a must-read.
The study is also interesting for us in Sweden. With a major war nearby, the question becomes uncomfortably topical. Some believe that the Swede who advocates negotiations between Russia and Ukraine is a potential traitor, while others believe that the traitors are instead those who negotiated Sweden into NATO.
How should “treason” be defined? Can it be defined at all, I begin to wonder as I read. The authors point out that treason has been carefully defined in English “common law” since 1352. It involves attempting to murder the king, queen or the eldest son of the royal couple, or raping the queen, the royal couple’s eldest daughter (if she is unmarried) or their eldest son’s wife. It also applies to attempts to murder the finance minister, or judges exercising their office.
There is a great deal of accuracy here, but certain questions still arise. So is it permissible to attack the royal couple’s eldest daughter if she is married – without it being considered treason? Does the same apply to murdering a judge when he is not exercising his office? Treason also includes actively joining the king’s enemies and starting a civil war.
What really worries the rulers of Britain is the flow of information. A number of new “Treason Acts” have been passed since 1352, but it is the original law that has been the basis, and which has also been used in modern times. Two British citizens were hanged after World War II for their collaboration with the Nazis; they were convicted under the 1352 law for having “joined the king’s enemies”, although a new Treason Act was introduced in 1940.
Boyer and Nicholls believe that a new law on treason was not passed the other year because what really worries the rulers of Britain is the flow of information and the risk of information concerning the security of the kingdom falling into the wrong hands. They also fear “disinformation”. Therefore, instead, a National Security Act was passed that criminalized the disclosure of various forms of “state secrets” and “collaboration with foreign intelligence services.”
Here we see a shift – what is important for those in power is to protect their own control over information flows, including things like revelations in the media or memes on social media.
Boyer and Nicholls note that treason laws no longer seem to be considered a legally useful tool. Accusations of treason require that during the trial, what is in the country’s interest is discussed. It is easier then to assume that certain things cannot be said – because they are “secret” or “false.”
But it should be noted that this study can also be read as pure relaxation – it is filled with fascinating stories about how the laws have been subverted throughout history, such as when Henry VIII enforced that murder by poison would be classified as treason. The punishment? Boiling to death.
Boris Benulic
kultur@epochtimes.se
