Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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The U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles appears to be proceeding on the theory that city and redevelopment officers committed potential “fraud” by accepting federal money for housing projects but omitting to run the projects in compliance with laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requiring that accommodations be offered for disabled patrons. At Cato at Liberty, I wonder whether we’re in for another venture into criminalization of an area best left to civil law.
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Deposed press lord Conrad Black is taking a public stand against the law enforcement and corporate-governance authorities that put him behind bars. [Andrew McCarthy/The New Criterion, earlier]
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The 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act bans feeding protected dolphins, seals and whales. A grand jury has now indicted licensed marine biologist Nancy Black, who sought to record the behavior of killer whales by rigging attachments to some killed prey that the predators were in the process of eating. Black’s attorney says she also faces a charge of lying to federal investigators because when asked to turn over evidence she gave them footage of the incident that she had already edited for reasons unrelated to the investigation. [The Economist]
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Curious goings-on during the sentencing process of a Vero Beach, Fla. lawyer gone wrong. [Vero Beach News]
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Florida lawmakers have purported to impose strict liability on defendants for some drug crimes, but the mens rea (guilty mind) prerequisite is no mere option as a matter of constitutional principle. [Ilya Shapiro, Cato at Liberty] (& welcome Above the Law readers)
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“In 2009, an earthquake devastated the Italian city of L’Aquila and killed more than 300 people. Now, scientists are on trial for manslaughter.” [Stephen S. Hall, Nature via Arts & Letters Daily]
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How they feed off each other. [Lucian Dervan, Journal of Law, Economics and Policy, SSRN]
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Bad enough when the media caters to this sort of thing, but when government itself does it, you may have crossed into Arpaio territory [Coyote] Related: David Kravets, Wired.
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I’ve got a few thoughts up at Cato on the case of the 11-year-old Virginia girl who tried to rescue a baby woodpecker in the back yard only to learn that possessing and transporting a migratory bird is a federal offense that carries a $500 fine and possible jail term. (& Henry Joel Simmons, Right on Crime)
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Great WSJ article on the unending proliferation of federal crimes, with appearances by a family that ran into a law making it a felony to dig for arrowheads on federal land, Bobby Unser and his snowmobile-astray ordeal, and a man effectively ruined by the $860,000+ cost of successfully defending himself against a federal charge of violating Russian hunting regulations.
“Most people think criminal law is for bad people,” says Timothy Lynch of Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. People don’t realize “they’re one misstep away from the nightmare of a federal indictment.”
More: from Tim Lynch, and (via PoL) Josh Blackman, William Anderson/Regulation mag.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved S. 978, a bill that would raise from a misdemeanor to a felony the unauthorized performance or streaming of a copyrighted work when the infringement takes place at least ten times and either reaps $2,500 or more in revenue, or avoids the payment of license fees whose fair market value would exceed $5,000. Mike Masnick at TechDirt thinks the bill could wind up authorizing the jailing of some persons who embed YouTube videos or post videos of themselves lip-synching hit tunes; CopyHype defends the bill and dismisses the concerns as overblown.
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According to his lawyer, Indiana high school senior Tyell Morton would have faced a maximum of three years had he brought a gun to school. Unfortunately for young Morton, he brought a blow-up doll instead. [Nsenga Burton/The Root, WTHR, Alkon]
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Watch out for sentencing spin, warns Scott Greenfield.
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Get your copy today! My new book tackles the question of why so many bad ideas come from the law schools. "Cutting-edge commentary, hard-hitting, witty, astute." -- Publisher's Weekly. "Excellent... A fine dissection of these strangely powerful institutions" -- Wall Street Journal.
Individual liberty, free markets, and peace: the world's premier libertarian think tank. Publishes Cato at Liberty, where I blog on contemporary policy issues.