Decent, law-abiding citizen? Go directly to jail.
Odds are, if you’re reading this, you’ve lived an admirable life. You applied yourself in school, got a good job, and worked hard to be a valuable member of your community. Through your own...
View ArticleGrammar Police Fail
So everyone from the Washington Post to Fark is reporting gleefully about the recent acquittal of a Northern Virginia man charged with failing to stop for a school bus picking up kids. The defense...
View ArticleRethinking Recidivism
It’s rare that we agree with a NY Times editorial. Yesterday, we came close. In a blurb titled “Recidivism’s High Cost and a Way to Cut It,” the editors said one solution to the high cost of...
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Too Many Crimes — Time for Change
A few times, now, we’ve talked about how there are too many federal crimes, and how an enormous number of them are frankly unjust. We’re just one of many voices crying out about this deep and...
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Too Many Federal Crimes, Too Many without Mens Rea — Do We Have a Movement Yet?
We’ve posted several times about how there are just too many federal crimes, many created by regulatory fiat or otherwise without meaningful oversight by elected officials. About how a great many of...
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“More Law?”– Pure Sociology Gets It Wrong
There seems to be a growing recognition that there’s a lot more law to deal with these days than there used to be. But when you say “more law,” what does your audience think you’re talking about? Are...
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Exceeding Their Authority: When Bureaucrats Create New Crimes, Justice Suffers
One of our bugbears here at The Criminal Lawyer is the excessive number of federal crimes — particularly those that are created by regulators rather than by elected legislators. We’re not alone in...
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On Overcriminalization: There’s nothing new under the sun
As we’ve mentioned perhaps a dozen times by now, we do this illustrated guide to law in our rare moments of free time. (Latest post on self-defense law is here.) We make every effort to avoid citing...
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Understanding the law
A lot of the law is extremely formulaic. True, human intelligence is required to spot issues, devise strategies, and (most importantly) persuade decisionmakers. But in its actual application, the law...
View ArticleDrawing the Line
Everyone knows that drunk drivers cause deadly car accidents. This is because alcohol impairs one’s ability to drive safely. So it is against the law to drive under the influence of alcohol. Everyone...
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Q&A Dump
I’m on the road today, but I wanted to post something. So I’m going to cheat and cut-and-paste some recent Q&A posts from my Tumblr. If you’re looking for a longer read, go check out my comic,...
View ArticleLet’s Make a New Law!
Any moderately well-informed person these days is aware of the shocking injustices that happen whenever criminal laws get written by people who don’t really understand what criminal law is, or how it...
View ArticleUndoing overcriminalization
So I saw this opinion piece in USA Today by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, titled “You Are Probably Breaking the Law Right Now: When lawmakers don’t even know how many laws exist, how can citizens be expected...
View ArticleA Tiny Bit More on Qualified Immunity
Last summer, I made a little ‘splainer for the Washington Post briefly explaining how Qualified Immunity works (and doesn’t). [Link] This afternoon, a very nice reporter reached out to me for some...
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