Also known as: délits · delit · delits · delict · misdemeanor · offence
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A minor criminal offense less serious than a felony and typically punishable by fine, probation, or imprisonment for less than one year.
Daphne Doyle faces twelve counts of altering odometers, each carrying a six-month maximum. The prosecutor seeks consecutive sentences that could total years. The court denies her jury demand because each count remains a misdemeanor under the Sixth Amendment analysis.
Delilah Duran shouts obscenities at an officer during a traffic stop. The officer arrests her on the spot for the misdemeanor committed in his presence even though the offense carries only a fine.
Deborah Dunn offers cash to a stagehand to start a fight with a critic at a music festival. The common-law solicitation to breach the peace constitutes a misdemeanor even though the critic had already left the venue.
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Devon Drake is convicted of a misdemeanor and receives a suspended thirty-day jail term. The Sixth Amendment requires appointed counsel because the suspended sentence creates a realistic threat of actual imprisonment.
Dolores Diaz pulls a chair from under a coworker at a holiday party in violation of a misdemeanor statute. The coworker falls, strikes her head, and dies. The unlawful act supports conviction for involuntary manslaughter.
Diego Duarte is convicted of a misdemeanor. The judge finds an additional fact that increases the maximum penalty beyond the statutory misdemeanor range. The fact must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Fifth Amendment requires a grand jury for infamous crimes but not for misdemeanors. A misdemeanor carrying a maximum of six months or less is presumptively petty and proceeds by information or complaint.
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Yes. An officer may arrest without a warrant for a misdemeanor committed in the officer's presence even when the offense is punishable only by a fine.
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The solicitor must act with specific intent that the solicited person commit the breach of the peace or other targeted conduct. Factual impossibility is no defense.
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Counsel must be appointed when a suspended jail sentence is imposed because the sentence may result in actual deprivation of liberty.
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An unintentional killing that occurs during commission of a misdemeanor constitutes involuntary manslaughter under the unlawful-act doctrine when the death is a foreseeable consequence of the misdemeanor.
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…law,[^maj-27] others followed Coke in stating that abortion of a quick fetus was a "misprision," a term they translated to mean "misdemeanor."[^maj-28] That their reliance on Coke on this aspect of the law was uncritical and, apparently in all the reported cases, dictum (due probably to the paucity of common-law prosecutions for…