FELO DE SE

person who commits suicide; act of committing suicide

Felo de se, Latin for "felon of himself," is an archaic legal term meaning suicide. In early English common law, an adult who committed suicide was literally a felon, and the crime was punishable by forfeiture of property to the king and what was considered a shameful burial (typically with a stake through his heart and with a burial at a crossroad). A child or mentally incompetent person, however, who killed him- or herself was not considered a felo de se and was not punished post-mortem for his or her actions. The term is not commonly used in modern legal practice.
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Suicide (Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) or Self-murder, is the act of intentionally terminating one's own life. Suicide occurs for a number of reasons such as depression, substance abuse, shame, avoiding pain, financial difficulties or other undesirable fates. Views on suicide have been influenced by cultural views on existential themes such as religion, honor, and the meaning of life. Most Western and Asian religions—the Abrahamic religions, Buddhism, Hinduism—consider suicide a dishonorable act; in the West it was regarded as a serious crime and offense against God due to religious belief in the sanctity of life. Japanese views on honor and religion led to seppuku being respected as a means to atone for mistakes or failure during the samurai era; Japanese suicides rates remain some of the developed world's highest. In the 20th century suicide in the form of self-immolation has been used as a form of protest, and in the form of kamikaze and suicide bombing as a military tactic or terrorist tactic.
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Noun
1. a person who kills himself intentionally
(synonym) suicide
(hypernym) killer, slayer
2. an act of deliberate self destruction
(hypernym) suicide, self-destruction, self-annihilation

A felon of himself; a self-murderer.

To be guilty of this offence, the deceased must have had the will and intention of committing it, or else he committed no crime. As he is beyond the reach of human laws, he cannot be punished. English law used to inflict a punishment by a barbarous burial of his body, and by forfeiting to the king the property which he owned and which would belong to his relations. The charter of privileges granted by William Penn to the inhabitants of Pennsylvania contains the following clause: 'If any person, through temptation or melancholy, shall destroy himself, his estate, real and personal, shall notwithstanding, descend to his wife and children, or relations, as if he had died a natural death.'
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.

Suicide