The Washington Legal Foundation published a Legal Backgrounder by white-collar defense attorney John Lauro on July 16. The article discusses the application of the Chevron doctrine in the criminal law context. In particular, Mr. Lauro analyzes judicial rulings on deferring to agency’s interpretation of a statute and a recent Justice Department policy that henceforth, agency… Continue Reading
Originally published at Manhattan-Institute by Rafael A. Mangual | January 1, 2019
The passage of the First Step Act — the criminal-justice and prison-reform bill championed by President Trump — was a rare bipartisan triumph in this age of deep polarization.
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Originally published at National Review by James R. Copland and Rafael A. Mangual| October 11, 2018
Across the country, well-meaning Americans face the threat of prosecution for violating state laws that criminalize unobjectionable behavior.
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Originally published at Manhattan-Institute by James R. Copland and Rafael A. Mangual | August 8, 2018
Building on previous MI studies, this paper lays out the contours of America’s state-level overcriminalization problem. Today, state statutory and regulatory codes overflow with criminal offenses. Most of these offenses involve conduct that is not intuitively wrong. Most could not be easily discoverable by individuals or small businesses that lack teams of specialized lawyers.
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Originally published at Cato Institute by Ilya Shapiro and Reilly Stephens | March 14, 2018
Can the government convict you of a crime without showing you had any understanding of the wrongdoing? Mark Ellison was convicted without any such showing and is asking the Supreme Court to take his case. Continue Reading
Originally published by Cato Institute by Walter Olson | February 16, 2017
Congress and state lawmakers (and where appropriate, the president and executive branch law enforcement officials) should review existing law with an eye toward rolling back overcriminalization and replacing criminal penalties with civil sanctions where feasible.
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Originally published at The Orange County Register by James R. Copland and Rafael A. Mangual | 11/17/16
Mariza Ruelas, a single mother in Stockton, California, is facing possible jail time for offering to sell her homemade ceviche, a Latin American seafood dish, through a Facebook group in which users swap recipes and occasionally swap meals. A man took her up on her offer, but unbeknownst to Ms. Ruelas, he was a government agent working on an undercover sting operation targeting those who sell food without a license.
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Originally published at Charles Koch Institute | April 12, 2016
According to attorney Harvey Silverglate, the average American inadvertently commits three arguable felonies in a given day. How is possible that Americans could commit so many felonies without knowing it? Continue Reading
Originally published at Charles Koch Institute | March 2, 2016 Case: Bobby Unser Criminal justice reform was the center of focus in the Land of Enchantment last week, as the Charles Koch Institute joined with the Rio Grande Foundation in Albuquerque to discuss the negative implications of overcriminalization in New Mexico. Also participating were experts from… Continue Reading
Originally published at Cato Institute by Adam Bates | November 19, 2015
Overcriminalization is not a myth. Labyrinthine regulations often produce absurd outcomes, including prison sentences for individuals who do everything in their power, including consulting multiple attorneys, to comply with the law before acting. Continue Reading
Originally published at National Review by Jonathan Keim | 9/21/15
As criminal justice reform has built momentum in recent months, it has lost some of its focus on overcriminalization issues like mens rea reform and overbreadth. This afternoon Senator Orrin Hatch refocused the coalition on these issues, bringing attention to proposed legislation that would rein in the overly expansive federal criminal code by imposing a default mens rea on all federal crimes. Continue Reading
Originally published at The Heritage Foundation by John G. Malcolm | 9/1/2015
A number of criminal justice reform proposals have been introduced and are being actively discussed and debated on Capitol Hill these days. Most[1] (but not all[2]) of these proposals involve reforming criminal sentencing practices and prison reform. Notably absent, at least so far, have been any proposals to address mens rea (Latin for a “guilty mind”) reform. Continue Reading
Originally published at Cato Institute by Ilya Shapiro and Randal John Meyer | July 30, 2015
It isn’t every day that a person can go to his or her job, work, not participate in any criminal activity, and still get a prison sentence. At least, that used to be the case: the overcriminalization of regulatory violations has unfortunately led to the circumstance that corporate managers now face criminal—not just civil—liability for their business operations’ administrative offenses. Continue Reading
Originally published at National Review by Jonathan Keim | June 3, 2015
On Monday the Supreme Court did something interesting in Elonis v. United States, a case about the interstate threat statute and its application to Facebook status messages. Although widely viewed as a case with great significance for the First Amendment’s application to social networking, the Court sidestepped the constitutional question and dove straight for the overcriminalization issue: default mens rea.
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Originally published at National Review by Jonathan Keim | 4/19/15
I hereby declare this to be “Overcriminalization Week” at the Supreme Court. Every one of the cases scheduled for argument has some relationship to several issues in the overcriminalization debate I pointed out a couple weeks ago. Continue Reading
Originally published at the National Review by George Will | April 9, 2015
The hyper-proliferation of criminal statutes has put too much power in the hands of prosecutors. What began as a trickle has become a stream that could become a cleansing torrent. Criticisms of the overcriminalization of American life might catalyze an appreciation of the toll the administrative state is taking on the criminal-justice system, and liberty generally. Continue Reading
Originally published at National Review by Jonathan Keim, Skilling v. US, Yates v. US| April 6, 2015
Second to military force, criminal law is the government’s most dangerous weapon. Recognizing its potential for misuse, the Western legal tradition has developed a wide variety of legal barriers to ensure that the punishments and stigmas of “criminal” are applied only to the people that deserve them. Continue Reading
Originally published at National Review by Lawrence Lewis | 12/1/15
Yes, says Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, an Obama political appointee in the Department of Justice, who last week took aim at the House Judiciary Committee’s bipartisan criminal justice reform efforts. She was specifically targeting the House mens rea reform bill, which would ensure that to be convicted of a federal crime, a defendant must have a minimal level of criminal intent. Here’s what Yates said, as quoted by NPR: Continue Reading
Originally published at Washington Legal Foundation by Matthew G. Kaiser | 10/1/15
On Friday, October 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit will hear oral arguments in a closely followed criminal health-care fraud case, U.S. v. Clay. Earlier this year, Washington Legal Foundation published a Legal Backgrounder on the case and its broader ramifications, Clay v. United States: When Executives Receive Jail Time for Ordinary Business Decisions. Continue Reading
Originally published by Charles Koch Institute | January 1, 2015
In 2011, fisherman John Yates was convicted of a felony under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s “anti-document-shredding” provision, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. What did Yates do to earn a conviction under a law intended to prevent white-collar criminals from defrauding investors and the public? He allegedly threw 3 of 72 fish he had caught back into the Gulf of Mexico. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had found the fish to be under the legal minimum size. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court threw out Yates’ conviction. Continue Reading
Originally published at The Heritage Foundation by Stephen F. Smith | 8/21/14
As issues of public policy go, few are as strange as overcriminalization. Once largely the subject only of academic complaint, the problems associated with overcriminalization are now more widely understood. Major think tanks,[1] media outlets,[2] civil libertarian groups,[3] and legal professional associations[4] have shined a harsh light on the injustices that federal prosecutors have committed against people who had no reason to know their actions were wrongful, much less illegal. Continue Reading
Originally published at National Review by Evan Bernick | 1/13/14
It’s time for our lawmakers to end overcriminalization. In the wake of media reports that 40,000 new federal, state, and local laws will go into effect this year, there’s no better time for Americans to revisit the old maxim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” An unknown number of these new provisions are criminal laws that can deprive us of our liberty and brand us for life. No ordinary American can be expected to know every law, new and old, on the books, not even every criminal law. Continue Reading
Originally published at The Heritage Foundation by John G. Malcolm and Norman L. Reimer | 12/11/13
Despite some of the sharpest political divisions in memory, Congress managed to mount one noteworthy bipartisan effort this year. Since May, the Over-criminalization Task Force, comprising five Republicans and five Democrats from the House Judiciary Committee, has worked diligently to develop recommendations that will address some of the fundamental problems plaguing the federal criminal justice system. Continue Reading
Originally published at Cato Institute by Jonathan Blanks | July 19, 2013
“Bipartisanship” sounds like a good idea in theory, but it usually ends up as broad congressional agreement that the American people have too many liberties or too much money. However, there is one area in which there is a growing bipartisan effort toward increased individual liberty: fighting overcriminalization. Continue Reading
Originally published at The Daily Signal by Joseph Luppino-Esposito | 4/17/12
Imagine the police knocking on your door because you mistakenly forgot to fill out an obscure form required by foreign law before opening up a small business. Imagine your 80-year-old mother being arrested for failing to place the appropriate sticker on an otherwise properly shipped package. Imagine your cancer-stricken neighbor being criminally charged for failing to trim the shrubbery in front of their house. Or imagine your child being prosecuted for eating a French fry in a public place. Continue Reading