When It Rains in Oregon, the State Owns the Raindrops
Who owns the rain? That sounds like a silly question, but the answer may surprise you. If you live in Oregon, Oregon does. So what… Read More
Regulatory Overreach: Obama Administration’s Case Against Gibson Guitar Drags On
Numerous Heritage research papers and postings on The Foundry in the past year have reported on the plight of Gibson Guitar, which has been accused… Read More
Should the Agriculture Committee Decide what we do in Afghanistan?
As part of an ongoing series, the Heritage Center for Legal and Judicial Studies periodically identifies a “Bill of the Week” that relates to the… Read More
The FOCUS Act Hearing: When Silence Is an Admission
The law sometimes reflects common sense. Consider this example: Innocent people don’t remain silent when accused of a crime or misconduct; they deny it. Accordingly,… Read More
Members of Congress Work to Rein In Overcriminalization in America
What do a legendary guitar maker and a lobster importer have in common? Both are alleged to have run afoul of the Lacey Act, one… Read More
Meese Makes Case Against Overcriminalization at Seton Hall Law
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… Read More
Overcriminalization Interrupted: Senate Passes House Version of Stock Act
“Hallelujah” overstates the point, but we are pleased that the Senate on Thursday accepted the revisions to the STOCK Act made by the House of… Read More
New Crime, More Time: Are You A Foreign Outlaw?
As part of an ongoing series, Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies identifies a “Bill of the Week” which impacts overcriminalization in America. Not… Read More
Overcriminalized Bill of the Week: We Already Know Witness Tampering is Bad
One of the three aspects of overcriminalization that we highlight in our weekly e-mail alerts is “Federalizing crime that properly belongs under state and local… Read More
VIDEO: Months After Federal Raid, Gibson Guitar Still Faces No Charges
Armed federal agents raided Gibson Guitar’s Nashville headquarters in August, creating a national outcry over the high-profile persecution. But today, six months after the raid,… Read More
“Fashionably Late”? Try “Criminally Late”
Everyone knows that showing up late generally is a bad idea. But is it so bad that it ought to be punished criminally? To some… Read More
Senate’s Public Corruption Move Raises Overcriminalization Concerns
The Senate is currently considering the addition of a public corruption bill as an amendment to the STOCK Act. While the goal of reining in… Read More
No Need to Muddy Criminal Law in Order to “Clean Up Government”
With their institution at all-time lows in public popularity and trust, it is no wonder that members of Congress are looking to improve the body’s… Read More
VIDEO: Gibson Guitar CEO Blasts Obama for Federal Raid, Persecution
Gibson Guitar is an American icon. Musicians ranging from blues legend B.B. King to rock stars with Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith have used its guitars…. Read More
News
Top 10 Reads: Oct. 5th, 2011
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. Ambrose: Federal law will get… Read More
Gibson Guitar Plays the Overcriminalization Blues
Do you know all the laws of the United States? Do you know all the laws of each of the 50 states (not to mention… Read More
For Proponents of More Federal Criminal Legislation, Ignorance of the Law Is Bliss
Animal rights activists and commercial fisherman may find little common ground, but both can share their plight as victims of overcriminalization. The front page story… Read More
The Worst Thing that Anybody Can Do to You is Take Away Your Freedom
How much danger does the federal government’s unprincipled, out-of-control body of criminal law pose to, say, the average American small-business person? Well, suppose you were… Read More
LawNews
Overcriminalization Victimizes Animal-Loving 11-Year-Old and Her Mother
Last month, a hyper-aggressive U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent, accompanied by a Virginia state trooper, arrived at Alison Capo’s door to announce that our… Read More
Wall Street Journal Exposes Federal Overcriminalization
Aspiring inventor Krister Evertson received a two-year sentence for allegedly abandoning materials that he had stored in sealed, stainless-steel containers, thus doing no harm to… Read More
Criminalization without Justification
The Wall Street Journal this weekend documented several sad features of the federal government’s proliferation of poorly written criminal laws, many of which leave it… Read More
Florida’s Interior-Design Disaster
We’ve all heard of the fashion police but probably assumed that was just a figure of speech. It turns out, however, that if you don’t… Read More
Bobby Unser vs the Feds
In 1997 three-time Indy 500 winner Bobby Unser was convicted of a federal crime that exposed him to a $5,000 fine and a six month… Read More
Overcriminalization: Attacking a Dangerous Precedent
What happens when the Florida legislature eliminates the centuries-old requirement that the government must prove that an accused person acted with criminal intent before he… Read More
The Way Criminal Law is Supposed to Work
Although sanity and common sense are frequently lacking in opinions issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski offered both those… Read More
Rolling Back Overcriminalization
Between 2000 and 2007, the United States Congress created 452 entirely new crimes, a rate of over one new crime every week. By the end… Read More
Morning Bell: Fighting Back Against Arbitrary Government Rule
Abner Schoenwetter had been in the commercial seafood business since 1986. Over the years, Schoenwetter built a successful company distributing seafood across the country, including… Read More
The Economist on Overcriminalization
There are many shocking real-life stories in Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Research Fellow Brian Walsh’s and co-author Visiting Fellow Paul Rosenzweig’s new book, One Nation… Read More
Federal Court Strikes Down Another Example of Overcriminalization
A Colorado federal court last week struck down another of Congress’s well-intentioned but poorly drafted criminal laws—a law that exemplifies some of the root problems… Read More
John Stossel on One Nation Under Arrest
In 1998, an American Bar Association task force estimated that there were over 3,000 federal criminal offenses scattered throughout the 50 titles of the United… Read More
