A bill set to be introduced next month would ban consuming or producing sexual content and punish offenders with prison sentences of up to 20 years and $25,000 fines.
Felony carries a penalty of imprisonment of a year or more. Misdemeanor is less than a year. Some states have a few crimes classified as elevated misdemeanors and can have slightly longer terms available for sentencing, but those are the exception and they diverge from the history where the terms come from.
I’m not from the USA, I thought a felony is a crime at the national level, not the state level? How can a state specify that?
Felony is a more serious crime, misdemeanor is a less serious crime.
But there are federal crimes and state crimes, and we have courts for each.
Felony carries a penalty of imprisonment of a year or more. Misdemeanor is less than a year. Some states have a few crimes classified as elevated misdemeanors and can have slightly longer terms available for sentencing, but those are the exception and they diverge from the history where the terms come from.