Ryan O'Donnell over at the Foundry gives a short primer on how Congress has been distorting both the Constitution and common sense as they turn blameless American citizens into criminals.If Congress drafts a law and no one can understand it, can individuals be punished for breaking it?
Increasingly, to the detriment of all Americans, the answer is yes.
Since our nation’s founding, a core principle of our system of justice has been that no citizen should be subjected to criminal punishment for conduct that he did not know was illegal or otherwise wrongful. This principle is embodied in the requirement that the government must prove a defendant acted with intent, or at least knowledge, before subjecting him to criminal punishment. Unfortunately this cornerstone of our criminal justice system has been under assault from Congress in recent decades.
By the end of 2007, the United States Code included over 4,450 federal crimes, with an estimated tens of thousands more located in the federal regulatory code. Many of these offenses were only recently created, and far too many lack an adequate guilty-mind (known by lawyers as mens rea) requirement...
These facts indicate that innocent Americans are increasingly at risk of criminal punishment. For example, in the 109th Congress:
* Over 57 percent of the offenses introduced, and 64 percent of those enacted into law, contained inadequate guilty-mind requirements;
* Criminal legislation was riddled with vague, far-reaching and imprecise language;
* Congress routinely delegated its authority to make criminal law to unaccountable regulators;
* Over half of all new criminal offenses were not sent to the House or Senate Judiciary Committees for review.
By consistently creating new criminal laws without consulting the special expertise of the two judiciary committees, Congress is endangering civil liberties and placing all Americans at risk of unjust criminal conviction for violating crimes they did not even know they were committing...
For a fuller picture, O'Donnell points to a new and unprecedented study released jointly by The Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), "Without Intent: How Congress Is Eroding the Criminal Intent Requirement in Federal Law."
It's a detailed report that will take some time to read through but let me give you a couple of hints: 1) It will keep your interest. 2) It's worth the time. And 3) If you really don't have the time, at least you look through the one-page Fact Sheet.
