Opinion ID: 2294895
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: the crime of misprision of felony

Text: As we have indicated, a person may be convicted of a felony upon proof establishing that he committed the offense as a perpetrating actor (principal in the first degree), or that, being actually or constructively present, he did not himself commit the offense but aided and abetted in the commission of it (principal in the second degree). `If he be present,' said Sir Matthew Hale, `and not aiding or abetting to the felony, he is neither principal nor accessory. If A and B be fighting and C, a man of full age, comes by chance, and is a looker on only, and assists neither, he is not guilty of murder or homicide, as principal in the second degree, but is a misprision, for which he shall be fined, unless he use means to apprehend the felon.' [17] In the case before us, both the trial court and the Court of Special Appeals believed that the misdemeanor of misprision of felony exists in Maryland today. The Court of Special Appeals expressly held that misprision of felony was a crime at common law given life in Maryland by Art. 5 of the Declaration of Rights. [18] It rejected the contention that the crime has become obsolete or abandoned by disuse as without merit. Pope, 38 Md. App. at 527. [19] There is no Maryland legislative enactment which is declarative of the common law crime of misprision of felony or which may be deemed to have created a comparable offense. Therefore, if misprision of felony is a crime in this State, it is only because it was part of the common law of England to which the inhabitants of Maryland were constitutionally entitled and has survived to the present time. We assume, arguendo, that misprision of felony was a crime under the common law of England, and that it became the law of this State pursuant to Art. 5 of the Declaration of Rights. The question is whether it is to be deemed an indictable offense in Maryland today. In determining the question, we look first to what misprision of felony is. According to Blackstone, the crime at common law consisted merely in the concealment of a felony which a man knows, but never assented to; for if he assented this makes him either principal or accessory. 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries []121. See Clark & Marshall, A Treatise on the Law of Crimes ง 8.14 (7th ed. 1967); R. Perkins, Criminal Law 512 (2d ed. 1969); L. Hochheimer, Crimes and Criminal Procedure ง 39 (1st ed. 1897). [T]here is reason to believe that misprision of felony as defined by Blackstone is merely one phase of the system of communal responsibility for the apprehension of criminals which received its original impetus from William I, under pressure of the need to protect the invading Normans in hostile country, and which endured up to the Seventeenth Century in England. In order to secure vigilant prosecution of criminal conduct, the vill or hundred in which such conduct occurred was subject to fine, as was the tithing to which the criminal belonged, and every person who knew of the felony and failed to make report thereof was subject to punishment for misprision of felony. Compulsory membership in the tithing group, the obligation to pursue criminals when the hue and cry was raised, broad powers of private arrest, and the periodic visitations of the General Eyre for the purpose of penalizing laxity in regard to crime, are all suggestive of the administrative background against which misprision of felony developed. With the appearance of specialized and paid law enforcement officers, such as constables and justices of the peace in the Seventeenth Century, there was a movement away from strict communal responsibility, and a growing tendency to rely on professional police. 8 U. Chi. L. Rev. 338, 340-341 (1941) (footnotes omitted). Glazebrook, Misprision of Felony โ Shadow or Phantom?, 8 Am. J. of Legal History 189 and 283 (1964) cites eminent authority that in England the offense fell into desuetude. Id. at 300. According to Glazebrook, there was no reported decision during the four hundred years since the offence first crept into a book, and no book before J. Chitty, A Practical Treatise on the Criminal Law (2d ed., London 1826) contained a precedent of an indictment for misprision of felony. Id. In any event, if the crime had died, it was resurrected by the House of Lords in H.L. Sykes v. Director of Public Prosecution, [1961] 3 All E.R. 33. Lord Denning stated that it is plain that there is and always has been an offence of misprision of felony and that it is not obsolete. [20] Id. at 40. Sykes acknowledged only two necessary elements, knowledge and concealment. [M]isprision requires nothing active. The failure or refusal to disclose the felony is enough. Id. at 41. This followed the Blackstone definition. The revival in England of the crime of misprision of felony was not generally welcomed. Resistance to the crime culminated in the Seventh Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee which recommended the abolition of the crime of misprision by eliminating all distinctions between felonies and misdemeanors. Misprision was replaced in the report by a new crime of withholding information with regard to certain offenses for a consideration other than restitution. [An agreement not to prosecute a felon in consideration of the return or compensation for goods stolen constitutes the common law offense of compounding a felony.] The Criminal Law Act of 1967 [c. 58 งง 1 and 5] adopted these two recommendations and has been interpreted as eliminating the crime of misprision of felony in England. Comment, Misprision of Felony: A Reappraisal, 23 Emory L.J. 1095, 1100-1101 (1974). See W. Wade and B. Lilliwhite, Annual Survey of Commonwealth Law 179 (1965); 10 Halsbury's Law of England ถ 1201 (Supp. 1978). The American experience paralleled that of England; the common law offense was simply not used. The status of the crime in the United States was summed up in Glazebrook, How Long, Then, Is The Arm Of The Law To Be?, 25 Mod. L. Rev. 301, 307, n. 51 (1962): No court in the United States has been prepared to adopt the English doctrine in its simplicity, and hold that a mere failure to disclose knowledge of a felony is itself an offence: State v. Hann 40 N.J.L. 288 (1878) often cited as a solitary exception (e.g. (1945) 32 Va.L.R. 172) was a decision on a statutory, not the common law offence. In several states an attempt has been made to establish an offence intermediate between a simple concealment and that of the accessory after: e.g., State v. Wilson 80 Vt. 249: 67 Atl. 533 (1907); State v. Biddle 2 Harr (Del.) 401; 124 Atl. 804 (1923);[ [21] ] Carpenter v. State 62 Ark. 286; 36 S.W. 900 (1896); Commonwealth v. Lopes (Mass.) 61 N.E. (2d) 849 (1945); State v. Graham 100 La. 669 (1938): `... in the modern acceptation of the term, misprision of felony is almost if not exactly the same as that of an accessory after the fact' (p. 680). The utility of such an offence has not, however, been demonstrated: `... perhaps not a single case can be cited in which punishment for such connection with a felony has been inflicted in the U.S.' โ 2 McClain Criminal Law, s. 938, cited at (1953) 6 S.Car.L.Q. 91. In Michigan, where the constitution incorporates the common law of crimes, the Supreme Court held that this does not extend to misprision of felony since it is `wholly unsuited to American criminal law and procedure as used in this State'; State v. Lefkovitz 294 Mich. 263, 293 N.W. 642 (1940); cf. U.S. v. Worcester 190 F. Supp. 565-566 (1960). And in interpreting the Federal statute (1 Stat. 113, s. 6) [18 U.S.C. ง 4 (1976)] which provides that `whoever having knowledge of the actual commission, of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the U.S. shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned not more than three years or both,' it has been held that there must be some affirmative act of concealment, for instance the suppression of evidence, the harbouring of the criminal or the intimidation of witnesses, as well as the failure to disclose, for otherwise `the words conceals and would be effectively excised from the statute.' This interpretation was necessary to rescue the statute from an `intolerable oppressiveness,' for while federal statutes were few when it was enacted in 1790, the great increase in their number would make it unenforceable today if any other were adopted: Bratton v. U.S. 73 F. (2d) 795 [10th cir.] (1934); followed Neal v. U.S. 102 F. (2d) 643 (1939). [ See also United States v. Farrer, 38 F.2d 515 (D. Mass.), aff'd, 281 U.S. 624 (1930).] This policy appears to have been successful. In 1956 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals noticed that `the annotations indicate no conviction for misprision [under the Federal statute] affirmed': Miller v. U.S., 230 F. (2d) 486. Cf. Bratton v. U.S . : `s. 146 was enacted April 30, 1790 ... and as far as the researches of court and counsel disclose, has been before the courts but twice in the 144 years of its life' (p. 797). Perkins in the second edition (1969) of his Criminal Law states that there seems to be no such offense as misprision of felony in most of the states. At 516. No such offense is included in the Model Penal Code (U.L.A.). [22] Four years ago, Florida followed Michigan's view announced in Lefkovitz, supra, that misprision of felony was wholly unsuited to American criminal law. Holland v. State, 302 So.2d 806 (Fla. App. 1974). Cf. Mangeris v. Gordon, Nev., 580 P.2d 481, 483-484 (1978). Compare State v. Flynn, 100 R.I. 520, 217 A.2d 432 (1966), stating that the common law crime of misprision of felony was an indictable offense under the constitution and laws of Rhode Island. A few states have enacted legislation creating a crime of misprision of felony substantially similar to the common law offense as defined in Sykes. See N.J.S.A. ง 2A:97-2 (N.J. 1969); Ohio Rev. Code ง 2921.22 (Spec. Supp. 1973); Wash. Rev. Code ง 9.69.100 (1976). Two states had such statutes, see Me. Rev. Stat. title 17, ง 902 (1964) and La. Rev.Stat. ง 856 (1870), which were later repealed. Maryland has been in line with the practically universal view of the other states. We find no case prior to the case sub judice in which a conviction of misprision of felony has reached an appellate court of this State and, insofar as can be ascertained from appellate dockets, there is only one other, State v. Shaw, 282 Md. 231, 383 A.2d 1104 (1978), see note 19, supra, in which the crime was charged. It is true, as observed by the trial court in the case at hand, that [a] dearth of appellate cases is not proof that the crime is not charged at trial level, but in view of the numerous appeals in criminal causes spawned by present day procedures and rights afforded an accused, it is remarkable indeed that, if convictions upon charge of the crime have occurred, the present case was the first in which an appeal was filed. We think that it is a fair inference that the crime has been seldom charged, and, if charged, has resulted in very few, if any convictions. Furthermore, we observe that misprision of felony was not proposed as an offense by Maryland's Commission on Criminal Law. [23] As it seems that misprision of felony has been virtually unused in Maryland since the Revolution gave birth to the United States, our inquiry turns to the effect of non-use of a common law crime. Early on, in State v. Buchanan, 5 H. & J. 317, (1821), Buchanan, J. for the Court announced that no part of the common law of England to which the inhabitants of Maryland were constitutionally entitled should be excluded merely because it had not been introduced and used in the courts here. Id. at 358. See McGraw v. State, 234 Md. 273, 275-276, 199 A.2d 229, cert. denied, 379 U.S. 862 (1964). Judge Buchanan explained: [U]nlike a positive or statute law, the occasion or necessity for which may long since have passed away, if there has been no necessity before, for instituting a prosecution for conspiracy, no argument can be drawn from the non-user for resting on principles which cannot become obsolete, it has always potentially existed, to be applied as occasion should arise. If there had never been in Maryland, since the original settlement of the colony by our ancestors, a prosecution for murder, arson, assault and battery, libel, with many other common law offenses, and consequently no judicial adoption of either of these branches of the common law, could it therefore be contended, that there was now no law in the State for the punishment of such offenses? 5 H. & J. at 358. This principle was affirmed by us, implicitly at least, in Harris v. Jones, 281 Md. 560, 380 A.2d 611 (1977) when we recognized for the first time in Maryland the common law tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, a tort previously unacknowledged or arguably abandoned by non-use. Pope, 38 Md. App. at 527. It does not follow, however, that because a common law crime does not become obsolete from mere non-use that it will always be viable. The opinion of the Court in Buchanan asserted that the provision in Art. 5 of the Declaration of Rights regarding entitlement to the common law of England without any restrictive words being used, had reference to the common law in mass, as it existed here, either potentially, or practically, and as it prevailed in England at the time, except such portions of it as are inconsistent with the spirit of that instrument, and the nature of our new political institutions.  5 H. & J. at 358 (emphasis added). We have repeated that statement on a number of occasions, Dashiell v. Attorney General, 5 H. & J. 392, 401 (1822); State v. Bank of Maryland, 6 G. & J. 205, 226 (1834); Lickle v. Boone, 187 Md. 579, 582, 51 A.2d 162 (1947); McGraw v. State, supra, 234 Md. at 275-276; Gladden v. State, 273 Md. 383, 389, 330 A.2d 176 (1974). We put it this way in Denison v. Denison, 35 Md. 361, 378 (1872): It is true the common law of England has been adopted by the people of this State, but only so far as it could be made to fit and adjust itself to our local circumstances and peculiar institutions. What this means is that the common law is subject to change. This is clearly apparent from its derivation and its very nature: The common law of England is derived from immemorial usage and custom, originating from Acts of Parliament not recorded, or which are lost, or have been destroyed. It is a system of jurisprudence founded on the immutable principles of justice, and denominated by the great luminary of the law of England, the perfection of reason. The evidence of it are treatises of the sages of the law, the judicial records and adjudications of the Courts of justice of England.  Buchanan, 5 H. & J. at 365 (opinion of Chase, C.J.). It may be changed by legislative act as Art. 5 of the Declaration of Rights expressly provides. See State v. Canova, 278 Md. 483, 486, 365 A.2d 988 (1976); Lutz v. State, 167 Md. 12, 15, 172 A. 354 (1934); Harrison v. State, 22 Md. 468, 487-488 (1864); Coomes v. Clements, 4 H. & J. 480, 481. It may also be changed by judicial decision. Chase, C.J., in his opinion in Buchanan, observed: Whether particular parts of the common law are applicable to our local circumstances and situation, and our general code of laws and jurisprudence, is a question that comes within the province of the courts of justice, and is to be decided by them. 5 H. & J. at 365-366. He gave this rationale: The common law, like our acts of assembly, are subject to the control and modification of the Legislature, and may be abrogated or changed as the general assembly may think most conducive to the general welfare; so that no great inconvenience, if any, can result from the power being deposited with the judiciary to decide what the common law is, and its applicability to the circumstances of the state,.... Id. at 366. [24] We said in Gilbert v. Findlay College, 195 Md. 508, 513, 74 A.2d 36 (1950) that [t]his interpretation has been continuously adopted in this State, and was reaffirmed in the case of Price v. Hitaffer, 164 Md. 505, 510, 165 A. 470 [1933]. We asserted in Ass'n of Taxi Oprs. v. Yellow Cab Co., 198 Md. 181, 204, 82 A.2d 106 (1951): We have frequently held that it is our duty to determine the common law as it exists in this state.... [25] The doctrine of stare decisis does not preclude the exercise of this duty. We declared in White v. King, 244 Md. 348, 354, 223 A.2d 763 (1966): The doctrine of stare decisis, important as it is, is not to be construed as preventing us from changing a rule of law if we are convinced that the rule has become unsound in the circumstances of modern life. Accord, Hearst Corp. v. St. Dep't of A. & T., 269 Md. 625, 643-644, 308 A.2d 679 (1973). Parts of the common law have been found by judicial mandate to be inapplicable or obsolete in other states. For example, Flores v. Flores, 84 N.M. 601, 506 P.2d 345, 347 (N.M. App.), cert. denied, 84 N.M. 592, 506 P.2d 336 (1973) found that liability free intentional injury to one's spouse does not reflect the circumstances in New Mexico. Swartz v. United States Steel, 293 Ala. 493, 304 So.2d 881, 885 (1974) held that the common law rule that a wife has no cause of action for loss of her consortium is inconsistent with the institutions of Alabama. Morganthaler v. First Atlantic National Bank, 80 So.2d 446 (Fla. 1955) rejected the English rule that a legatee may elect to receive cash when a testator directs his executor to purchase an annuity because it dethrones a principle [that the intent of the testator controls] which is sacred to our way of life and fundamental in our concepts of right and justice. Id. at 452. In exercising our duty to determine whether a common law crime presently exists in this State, mere non-use is not sufficient, as we have indicated, to conclude that the offense has become obsolete. But non-use, we believe, is not without significance. When an offense has lain virtually dormant for over two hundred years, it is difficult to argue that the preservation of society and the maintenance of law and order demand recognition of it. See Glazebrook, How Long, Then, Is The Arm Of The Law To Be?, 25 Mod. L. Rev. 301, 307-311 (1962). Perkins points out: The notion that misprision is needed, to prevent one who knows about another's felony from intentionally misleading investigating officers, is unfounded. If, when being questioned by officers who are investigating a felony, one who knows the facts intentionally misleads the officers by false statements and thereby `covers up' for the felon, he thereby makes himself an accessory to that felony after the fact. If he impedes the investigation by falsely saying he does not know about it, or by refusing to talk, he should be held to be guilty of obstructing justice. There is a wide difference between a mere failure to hunt up an officer and tell about a felony, on the one hand, and a refusal to cooperate with an investigating officer, on the other. R. Perkins, Criminal Law 517 (2d ed. 1969). Even more relevant, however, to a consideration of whether a common law crime is applicable as compatible with our local circumstances and situation and our general codes of law and jurisprudence is the nature of the crime. The reason for the failure of common law misprision of felony to survive in the United States was well expressed by Chief Justice Marshall over a hundred and fifty years ago in Marbury v. Brooks, 20 U.S. (7 Wheat.) 556, 575-576 (1822) and thereafter noted by many commentators, text book authors and other authorities: It may be the duty of a citizen to accuse every offender, and to proclaim every offence which comes to his knowledge; but the law which would punish him in every case for not performing this duty is too harsh for man. In England, according to Glazebrook in his critical consideration of Sykes v. Director of Public Prosecutions, supra, in 25 Mod. L. Rev. 301, the Criminal Law Commissioners in their Fifth Report in 1840 repeated and elaborated this criticism and observed: `The necessity of making such disclosures extends perhaps with greater force to the knowledge of a meditated crime, the perpetration of which may, by means of such disclosure, be prevented, than it does to the knowledge of one already committed.' Id. at 301, citing, n. 3, Parl. Pap. (1840) xx, p. 32; quoted, Williams, The Criminal Law: The General Part (2nd ed., London 1961), p. 423. Glazebrook opined that [f]or more than a century misprision of felony has been an embarrassment to common lawyers, and feared that the decisions and speeches in the House of Lords in Sykes afford only increased cause for this embarrassment. Id. at 301. The Court of Special Appeals relied on Sykes in holding that misprision of felony, as Sykes found it existed at common law, was currently an indictable crime in Maryland. [26] Glazebrook ably refuted Sykes, and we borrow extensively from him in the discussion which follows. Misprision of felony at common law is an impractically wide crime, a long-standing criticism which remains unanswered in Sykes. It has an undesirable and indiscriminating width: The real harshness lies in the fact that the duty to disclose arises when a person acquires knowledge of an offence, and this he may do quite involuntarily. A says to B: `Did you know that X stole a book from the library last week?' adding appropriate circumstantial details; or X says to B: `I stole some money yesterday; will you help me to repay it?' B is a friend of X; he wished to know nothing of X's misdeeds; and yet he is to be a criminal if he does not betray him. It is, furthermore, particularly difficult to defend a law which indiscriminately adds to the injuries of the victim of a crime the penalties of the criminal law should he or she wish to forgive and forget. 25 Mod. L. Rev. at 311. Misprision differs from almost all other common law offenses of omission: [T]he duty to act arises not because of the willing assumption of responsibility, the occupation of an office, or the ownership of property, but because of the mere possession of certain knowledge โ knowledge possessed accidentally and undesired โ knowledge which may indeed have been acquired through some malevolent person. Id. Glazebrook observes that although [t]here may be crimes where the protection of the public requires that each offender be brought to justice however reluctant his victims, his friends, or those who have him in their care, may be to do so, ... the line which separates them from all other offences is not the line which separates felonies from misdemeanors. Id. at 312. This is particularly true with respect to Maryland where the distinction between felony and misdemeanor is a hodgepodge, following neither rhyme nor reason. Under Sykes, no active step need be taken to conceal the felony (it is only thus that it remains quite distinct from the crime of accessory after the fact), and the concealment need bring no benefit to the accused. [27] But three fundamental questions remained: when does the duty to reveal a felony arise; how is that duty discharged; and does a relationship with the felon prevent the duty arising? [28] It seems that the duty arises when a man knows of the commission of a felony. When, then, can a man, be said to know and what is it that he must know? Lord Goddard held that there must be disclosure when the knowledge a man has is so definite that it ought to be disclosed. A man is neither bound nor would he be wise to disclose rumours or mere gossip, but, if facts are within his knowledge that would materially assist in the detection and arrest of a felon, he must disclose them as it is a duty he owes to the state. Sykes at 46. Lord Goddard left the matter to the jury as a question of fact. Glazebrook suggests that unless the jury is to be entirely uncontrolled, it has to be told how precise and certain the accused's knowledge must have been before he can be convicted. 25 Mod. L. Rev. at 313. Is the duty to be confined to felonies committed in the presence of the accused, and, if not, is hearsay sufficient? Should the felon's own admission, standing alone, be enough? Knowledge of the commission of a crime is an ingredient of the offenses of accessory after the fact and receiving stolen goods, but, unlike misprision, they require a positive act. It is reasonable, in such circumstance, to require a person who has reason to believe something is wrong to inquire further before embarking on some course of conduct, and to hold that he fails to do so at his peril. If this rule is applied to misprision, two duties are imposed: a duty to disclose knowledge of a felony, and a duty also to make inquiries to resolve a suspicion concerning the commission of a felony. Id. To paraphrase Glazebrook, must the inhabitants of Maryland become detectives as well as informers? Sykes fails to provide a working rule for what the accused must know. There was a direct conflict between Lord Denning and Lord Morton into which their brethren did not enter. Discussing knowledge, Lord Denning said: The accused man must know that a felony has been committed by someone else. His knowledge must be proved in the way in which the prosecution have been accustomed in other crimes when knowledge is an ingredient, such as receiving, accessory after the fact, compounding a felony, and so forth. That is to say, there must be evidence that a reasonable man in his place, with such facts and information before him as the accused had, would have known that a felony had been committed. From such evidence the jury may infer that the accused man himself had knowledge of it. He need not know the difference between felony and misdemeanour โ many a lawyer has to look in the books for the purpose.... Sykes at 41. Glazebrook comments: This leaves it largely a matter of chance whether misprision is committed or not. 25 Mod. L. Rev. at 314. That is, on the one hand, it must have been a felony of which the accused knew, but on the other hand, he need not know whether the crime was a felony or a misdemeanor. According to Lord Denning, it would be enough that the accused knew that a serious offense had been committed if it turns out to be a felony โ a lawyer on turning up the books sees it is a felony.... This requirement that it must be a serious offence disposes of many of the supposed absurdities, such as boys stealing apples, which many laymen would rank as a misdemeanour and no one would think he was bound to report to the police. It means that misprision comprehends an offence which is of so serious a character that an ordinary law-abiding citizen would realise he ought to report it to the police. Sykes at 42. This rationale was based on the view that what distinguishes a felony from a misdemeanor is that a felony is a serious offense, an offence of an `aggravated complexion'.... Felonies are the serious offences. Misdemeanours are the less serious. Id. This introduced a limitation Lord Morton was not willing to accept. Id. at 46-47. In any event, the limitation added the further uncertainty of a trier of fact's view of the gravity of the crime to be reported. 25 Mod. L. Rev. at 314. And, we observe, the foundation for the limitation is weak indeed when considered in light of the categories of felonies and misdemeanors adopted in this State. Sykes avoids what account is to be taken of excuses offered by an apparent felon. For example, [i]n cases of larceny, may the citizen be satisfied by any claim of right that is made, or must it be weighed, and where suspicion remains this communicated to the police? ... The [ Sykes ] recognition of misprision means, therefore, the imposition not of a duty to disclose knowledge of the commission of a felony, but of a duty to disclose suspicions of the commission of a felony.... Id. at 314-315. There are no criteria for determining which suspicions are to give rise to a duty, and so to criminal liability. When the duty to disclose has arisen, it is not clear how it is discharged. It would be logical that once the authorities are in possession of all the information concerning a felony, a citizen's duty to disclose his own knowledge ceases. So there is an added element of chance โ the chance that the police already know. Id. at 315. Lord Denning saw the duty as requiring a citizen to disclose to proper authority all material facts known to him relative to the offence. It is not sufficient to tell the police that a felony has been committed. He must tell the name of the man who did it, if he knows it;[ [29] ] the place, and so forth. All material facts known to him.... If he fails or refuses to perform this duty when there is a reasonable opportunity available to him to do so, then he is guilty of misprision. Sykes at 42. This was not sufficient for Lord Goddard. He thought that facts ... within his knowledge that would materially assist in the detection and arrest of a felon must be disclosed as a duty owed to the State. Id. at 46. Thus if a man disclosed all he knew about the commission of a felony and yet did not disclose the whereabouts of the felon he would be acquitted by Lord Denning and convicted by Lord Goddard. 25 Mod. L. Rev. at 315. Their lordships agreed that the questions of when the knowledge must be revealed and how much trouble must be taken to reveal it were for the jury. Glazebrook is critical of this as assigning unsuitably vague questions to the trier of fact: If a man is to be punished for not doing something, he ought to know precisely what is expected of him. The standard which he fails at his peril to attain ought not to be left to be fixed after the event by the whim of a particular jury. Formulae that pass muster in determining the liability of one who engages in a dangerous course of conduct are not always suited to crimes of pure omission. Id. at 316. Only Lord Denning considered relationship with the felon with respect to the duty to disclose: Non-disclosure may be due to a claim of right made in good faith. For instance, if a lawyer is told by his client that he has committed a felony, it would be no misprision in the lawyer not to report it to the police, for he might in good faith claim that he was under a duty to keep it confidential. Likewise with doctor and patient, and clergyman and parishioner. There are other relationships which may give rise to a claim in good faith that it is in the public interest not to disclose it. For instance, if an employer discovers that his servant has been stealing from the till, he might well be justified in giving him another chance rather than reporting him to the police. Likewise with the master of a college and a student. But close family or personal ties will not suffice where the offence is of so serious a character that it ought to be reported. Sykes at 42. Glazebrook finds this to be a singularly unhappy instance of creative judicial activity, for a defence grounded on a `claim of right made in good faith' is in this context inapt, and the choice of relationship perverse. 25 Mod. L.R. at 317. He explains: A person advancing a defence of `claim of right' pleads that he mistakenly thought that the law recognised in him a right to act in the way he did. If his defence is accepted, his mistake will be benevolently viewed, and he is excepted from criminal liability. The defence is thus founded on the mistake, on the claim, not the right, and disappears when the mistake is corrected.... In short, if the crime is to be limited, there must be a categorical rule that doctors and the like are under no duty to disclose their patients' felonies. Id. As to the choice of exempt relationships [t]he exclusion in misprision of `close family or personal ties' is utterly callous and certainly futile: how can the relation between doctor and patient, an employer and his servant, be thought more sacred, more deserving of respect and consideration โ even by the law โ than that between husband and wife, between father and son? By what standard is it unreasonable to expect an employer to report his servant's crimes to the police, and yet proper that a son should betray his father? Id. at 318. We observe that common law misprision is not only beset with practical defects but may implicate constitutional privileges. To sustain the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, [30] it need only be evident from the implications of the question, in the setting in which it is asked, that a responsive answer ... might be dangerous because injurious disclosure might result. Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486-487, 71 S.Ct. 814 (1951). The privilege extends not only to information that would itself support a conviction, but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence to prosecute the claimant.... Id. at 486. See United States v. King, 402 F.2d 694 (9th Cir.1968), reversing conviction of federal misprision on Fifth Amendment grounds. We note also that it has been suggested that the federal misprision statute may involve the right of privacy. In United States v. Worcester, 190 F. Supp. 548, 566 (D. Mass. 1961), Judge Wyzanski, discussing the federal statute, said: To suppose that Congress reached every failure to disclose a known federal crime, in this day of myriad federal tax statutes and regulatory laws, would impose a vast and unmeasurable obligation. It would do violence to the unspoken principle of the criminal law that `as far as possible privacy should be respected.' There is `a strong reluctance on the part of judges and legislators to sanction invasion of privacy in the detection of crime.' There is `a general sentiment that the right to privacy is something to be put in balance against the enforcement of the law.' Sir Patrick Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals, p. 19. See Shannonhouse, Misprision of a Federal Felony: Dangerous Relic or Scourge of Malfeasance, 4 U. Balt. L. Rev. 59 (1974), calling for excisement from the criminal code of the federal crime. Compare Goldberg, Misprision of Felony: An Old Concept in New Context, 52 A.B.A.J. 148 (1966), and Comment, Misprision of Felony: A Crime Whose Time Has Come, Again, 28 U. Fla. L. Rev. 199 (1975). We have proceeded on the assumption that the House of Lords was correct in concluding in Sykes that there is and always has been an offense of misprision of felony.... Sykes at 40. We are persuaded, finding no sound reason not to be, that their lordships' definition of the offense and the composition of its elements properly reflected the crime as it existed at common law. We are satisfied, considering its origin, the impractical and indiscriminate width of its scope, its other obvious deficiencies, and its long non-use, that it is not now compatible with our local circumstances and situation and our general code of laws and jurisprudence. Maintenance of law and order does not demand its application, and, overall, the welfare of the inhabitants of Maryland and society as enjoyed by us today, would not be served by it. If the Legislature finds it advisable that the people be obligated under peril of criminal penalty to disclose knowledge of criminal acts, it is, of course, free to create an offense to that end, within constitutional limitations, and, hopefully, with adequate safeguards. [31] We believe that the common law offense is not acceptable by today's standards, and we are not free to usurp the power of the General Assembly by attempting to fashion one that would be. We hold that misprision of felony is not a chargeable offense in Maryland.