It is usually inflicted on persons convicted of crimes against the state or adults determined by a court to be legally incompetent because of mental disability.
[3] Under the Holy Roman Empire, a person declared civilly dead was referred to as vogelfrei ('free as a bird') and could even be killed since they were completely outside the law.
[4] Under early English common law a living person could under certain conditions be considered legally dead.
[5] In the U.S., the disenfranchisement of felons[6] has been called a form of civil death, as has being subjected to collateral consequences in general.
[8][9] The deprivation of political rights is a supplementary punishment defined in the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China.