Misprision of Felony

A common law offense consisting of knowing that another person has committed a felony and deliberately concealing that knowledge from law enforcement authorities, without taking any affirmative act to assist the felon, which would instead constitute the separate and more serious offense of being an accessory after the fact. Originating in English common law, the offense survives today primarily as a specific federal statutory offense in the United States, codified at 18 U.S.C. 4, which requires proof that the person had actual knowledge of a federal felony and took some affirmative step to conceal it, such as making a false statement, since mere passive silence alone has generally been held insufficient to sustain a conviction; a number of other common law jurisdictions abolished the offense in its historical form during the twentieth century.