Tag Archives: mandatory minimums

The Wrongs of American Justice

Originally Published at National Review by Conrad Black | February 20 2016
Two relatively recent articles in respected publications have piercingly reminded me of what a rotting carcass much of the American legal system has become. The articles were a piece in The Weekly Standard of October 26 by retired attorney Paul Mirengoff and Georgetown law professor and former prosecutor William Otis, and a fawning profile of Judge Richard Posner by Lincoln Caplan (the Truman Capote visiting lecturer at Yale Law School, if such a position can be imagined) in the current issue of Harvard Magazine. TOP ARTICLES2/5READ MOREWarren Rips Bloomberg for AllegedlyTelling Pregnant Employee to ‘Kill’ It Continue Reading

Not Everything That’s Unseemly Should Be Illegal

Originally published at Cato Institute by Ilya Shapiro and Randal John Meyer
The explosion in criminal statutes is only a part of the problem of overcriminalization. The other side of the coin is prosecutorial discretion: a prosecutor’s official authority to charge certain offenses and not to charge others. The growth of criminal codes, state and federal, gives prosecutors more tools, which allows them to both “stack” charges and expand the reach of criminal code provisions to new, non-criminal facts. Continue Reading

The Culture of Criminalization

Originally published at Cato Institute by Gene Healy
On April 22, a House Judiciary subcommittee approved a bill that would send parents to jail for at least three years if they learn of drug activity near their children and fail to report it to authorities within 24 hours. Continue Reading

The Overcriminalization of America

riginally published at Politico by Charles G. Koch & Mark Holden | January 7, 2015
As Americans, we like to believe the rule of law in our country is respected and fairly applied, and that only those who commit crimes of fraud or violence are punished and imprisoned. But the reality is often different. It is surprisingly easy for otherwise law-abiding citizens to run afoul of the overwhelming number of federal and state criminal laws. Continue Reading