Law can be divided into two main branches: private law and public law. Private law deals with the rights and obligations people have in their relations with one another. Public law concerns the rights and obligations people have as members of society and as citizens. Both private and public law can be subdivided into several branches. However, the various branches of public and private law are closely related, and in many cases they overlap.
Private law determines a person’s legal rights and obligations in many kinds of activities that involve other people. Such activities include everything from borrowing or lending money to buying a home or signing a job contract.
The great majority of lawyers and judges spend most of their time dealing with private law matters. Lawyers handle most of these matters out of court. But numerous situations arise in which a judge or jury must decide if a person’s private-law rights have been violated.
Private law can be divided into six major branches according to the kinds of legal rights and obligations involved. They are: contract and commercial law, tort, property law, inheritance law, family law, and company law.
Contract and commercial law deals with the rights and obligations of people who make contracts. A wide variety of business activities depend on the use of contracts.
A tort is a wrong or injury that a person suffers because of someone else’s action. The action may cause bodily harm; damage a person’s property, business, or reputation; or make unauthorized use of a person’s property. The victim may sue the person or persons responsible. The law of tort deals with the rights and obligations of the persons involved in such cases. Many torts are unintentional, such as causing damage in traffic accidents. But if a tort is deliberate and involves serious harm, it may be treated as a crime.
Property law governs the ownership and use of property. The law ensures a person’s right to own property. However, the owner must use the property lawfully. People also have the right to sell or lease their property and to buy or rent the property of others. Property law determines the rights and obligations involved in such dealings.
Inheritance law, or succession law, concerns the transfer of property upon the death of the owner. Nearly every country has basic inheritance laws, which list the relatives or other persons who have first rights of inheritance. But in most Western nations, people may will their property to persons other than those specified by law. In such cases, inheritance law also sets the rules for the making of wills.
Family law determines the legal rights and obligations of husbands and wives and of parents and children. It covers such matters as marriage, divorce, adoption, and child support.
Company law governs the formation and operation of business corporations or companies. It deals mainly with the powers and obligations of management and the rights of shareholders. Company law is often classed with contract and commercial law as business law.
Public law involves government directly. It defines a person’s rights and obligations in relation to government. Public law also describes the various divisions of government and their powers.
Public law can be divided into four branches: criminal law, constitutional law, administrative law, and international law.
Criminal law deals with crimes- that is, actions considered harmful to society. Crimes range in seriousness from disorderly conduct to murder. Criminal law defines these offences and sets the rules for the arrest, the possible trial, and the punishment of offenders.
A constitution is a set of rules and principles that define the powers of a government and the rights of the people. The principles outlined in a constitution form the basis of constitutional law. The law also includes official rulings on how constitution principles are to be interpreted and carried out.
Administrative law centers on the operations of government departments. Administrative law is one of the most complicated branches of law. Administrative law consists chiefly of the legal powers granted to administrative departments by the legislature and the rules that the departments make to carry out their powers.
International law deals with the relationships among nations both in war and in peace. It concerns trade, communications, boundary disputes, methods of warfare, the uses of the ocean, and many other matters.
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MAJOR AND MINOR CRIMES
1. The criminal law makes an effort to classify breaches of the law according to their seriousness by dividing them into two categories— felonies, or major crimes; and misdemeanors, or minor crimes. This effort, as we shall see, is not very successful. Nevertheless, the division affects every aspect of the operation of the criminal law, from arrest to trial to sentencing to place of confinement.
2. The common law of England divided crimes into four groups: high treason, petit treason, felonies, and misdemeanors. The first consisted in killing the king, levying war against him, supporting his enemies, or lending his enemies aid and comfort. Petit treason involved the killing of a husband by a wife, a master or mistress by a servant, or a prelate by a clergyman — a breach of allegiance, in short, in a superior-subordinate relationship.Felonies were defined as crimes other than treason that caused great moral indignation or did serious harm and were punishable by death and the forfeiture of land and goods. Misdemeanors consisted of offenses that were considered minor and were punishable with lesser penalties, such as whipping and branding.
3. The law continues to make these distinctions to the present day, with the exception of petit treason, which was abolished by statute in 1828. The harshness of penalties has been greatly reduced, and high treason occupies the attention of society only on occasion; but in the Anglo-American legal system crimes are still categorized as felonies or misdemeanors, with punishments of greater and lesser severity. In general, those offenses calling for the death penalty (or which once did so) or imprisonment for more than a year are labeled felonies. All other offenses are lumped under the heading of misdemeanors.
4. The criteria distinguishing between more and less serious crime presumably involve the amount of injury or harm done and the degree of moral outrage that is elicited. However, the lack of any explicit and objective standard in the law for measuring harm or moral outrage means that crimes are often defined as felonies and misdemeanors in an inconsistent fashion.
5. The classification of crimes differs from one state to another, so that particular offenses may vary in imputed seriousness with geographical location. Within a state, property offenses may change abruptly from misdemeanors to felonies when the value of the stolen object goes above a certain figure, say $300- and rising prices caused by inflation may transform an offense from minor to serious. In a number of states, an offense that is a misdemeanor the first time it is committed becomes a felony when it is repeated.
6. If the distinction between misdemeanors and felonies is inconsistent and often seems to be based on tradition rather than on reasoned analysis, it nevertheless has far-reaching importance. First, the definition of a crime is sometimes contingent on the classification of another; burglary, for example, is defined as breaking and entering a dwelling with intent to commit a felony rather than a misdemeanor. Second, in some jurisdictions conviction of a felony disqualifies the individual from holding public office, voting, and serving on a jury. Conviction for a misdemeanor does not carry such consequences. Third- and this is particularly important for the administration of the criminal law- the fact that felonies and misdemeanors differ in their punishments provides the basis for plea-bargaining. The charge against a defendant may be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor in return for a plea of guilty, thus saving the state the time and expense of a trial.
7. The classification of crimes as felonies and misdemeanors, or as more and less serious, represents a normative judgment of society that is important not only in the day-to-day administration of the criminal law, but also in the modification of the penal code, the allocation of resources for the control of crime, and the understanding of the causes of crime. It is surprising, the, that measuring public attitudes toward the seriousness of crimes received relatively little attention in criminology until the last few decades and that so many crucial questions still remain unanswered.