The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has this press release on a package of bills that, if the descriptions are accurate, may actually make improvements in the criminal law.
In recent years, it seems like every package labeled "reform" has actually been a proposal to condemn us to repeat the soft-on-crime errors of the Age of Aquarius.
According to the press release, these four bills would address (1) the required mental state where the statute specifies none, (2) acts made criminal by regulations rather than statutes, (3) acts that never should have been made criminal in the first place, and (4) just plain drafting errors. These are all genuine problems that genuinely need fixing.
I hope to have time soon to look at the actual bill language and see if the bills live up to their billing.
And I am really looking forward to citing the Fix the Footnotes Act of 2015 in a Supreme Court brief.
In recent years, it seems like every package labeled "reform" has actually been a proposal to condemn us to repeat the soft-on-crime errors of the Age of Aquarius.
According to the press release, these four bills would address (1) the required mental state where the statute specifies none, (2) acts made criminal by regulations rather than statutes, (3) acts that never should have been made criminal in the first place, and (4) just plain drafting errors. These are all genuine problems that genuinely need fixing.
I hope to have time soon to look at the actual bill language and see if the bills live up to their billing.
And I am really looking forward to citing the Fix the Footnotes Act of 2015 in a Supreme Court brief.
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