(a term derived from the old French, misprit, a neglect or contempt), are, in the acceptation of our law, generally understood to be all such high offences as are under the degree of capital, but nearly bordering thereon: and it is said, that a misprision is contained in every treason and felony whatsoever; and that, if the king so pleases, the offender may be proceeded against for the misprision only. And upon the same principle, while the jurisdiction of the star-chamber subsisted, it was held that the king might remit a prosecution for treason, and cause the delinquent to be censured in that court, merely for a high misdemeanor: as happened in the case of Roger earl of Rutland, in 43 Eliz. who was concerned in the earl of Essex's rebellion. Misprisions are generally divided into two sorts; negative, which consist in the concealment of something which ought to be revealed; and positive, which consist in the commission of something which ought not to be done.

1. Of the first, or negative kind, is what is called misprision of treason; consisting in the bare knowledge and concealment of treason, without any degree of assent thereto: for any assent makes the party a principal traitor; as indeed the concealment, which was construed aiding and abetting, did at the common law; in like manner as the knowledge of a plot against the state, and not revealing it, was a capital crime at Florence, and other states of Italy. But it is now enacted by the statute 1 & 2 Ph. & Mar. c. 1c. that a bare concealment of treason shall be only held a misprison. This concealment becomes criminal, if the party apprised of the treason does not, as soon as conveniently may be, reveal it to some judge of assize or justice of the peace. But if there be any probable circumstances of assent, as if one goes to a treasonable meeting, knowing beforehand that a conspiracy is intended against the king; or, being in such company once by accident, and having heard such treasonable conspiracy, meets the same company again, and hears more of it, but conceals it; this is an implied assent in law, and makes the concealer guilty of actual high-treason.

Misprision of felony is also the concealment of a felony which a man knows, but never assented to; for, if he assented, this makes him either principal or accessory. And the punishment of this, in a public officer, by the statute Welfm. r. 3 Edw. I. c. 9, is imprisonment for a year and a day; in a common person, imprisonment for a less discretionary time; and, in both, fine and ransom at the king's pleasure; which misprision-pleasure of the king must be observed, once for all, not to signify any extrajudicial will of the sovereign, but such as is declared by his representatives, the judges in his courts of justice; voluntas regis in curia, non in camera.

2. Misprisions, which are merely positive, are generally denominated contempt or high misdemeanor; of which the principal is the mal-administration of such high officers as are in public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment; wherein such penalties, short of death, are inflicted, as to the wisdom of the house of peers shall seem proper; confining usually of banishment, imprisonment, fines, or perpetual disfability. Hither also may be referred the offence of embezzling the public money, called among the Romans peculatus; which the Julian law punished with death in a magistrate, and with deportation, or banishment, in a private person. With us it is not a capital crime, but subjects the committer of it to a discretionary fine and imprisonment.—Other misprisions are, in general, such contempts of the executive magistrate as demonstrate themselves by some arrogant and undutiful behaviour towards the king and government: for a detail of which, vide Blackstone's Comment. iv. 22.