Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior…
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More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of…[more]

March 19, 2024 • 08:35 AM

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Justice Reform Legislation: Prosecution Should Require Criminal Intent Print
By Timothy H. Lee
Thursday, December 10 2015
It's sad commentary that the current state of affairs demands legislation to require the government to actually charge criminal intent before subjecting someone to criminal prosecution.

Before charging an American citizen with a crime, thereby forcing that person to face the weight of federal, state or local power, government should at least allege that the citizen actually intended to commit a crime. 

Unfortunately, that's increasingly not the case in America today. 

The number of federal criminal statutes now measures approximately 5,000, and approximately 300,000 more criminal offenses exist amid the vast expanse of federal administrative regulations.  As a result, neither Congress nor the executive Department of Justice can even determine how many criminal laws actually exist.  And in addition to those federal criminal statutes and regulations, of course, innumerable state and local laws empower criminal prosecution as well. 

That state of affairs doesn't just create an atmosphere of legal uncertainty for citizens and government officials alike.  It also improperly grants federal, state and local bureaucrats a frightening degree of authority to single out individual citizens for arbitrary prosecution. 

Even worse, many of those criminal laws don't even require an intent to commit the specified crime.  That simply does not comport with legal tradition or Americans' concept of justice.  

Longstanding Anglo-American criminal law requires the prosecution to prove a guilty mind, or "mens rea," in addition to establishing a guilty physical act, or "actus reus."  That mens rea requirement satisfies obvious concepts of fairness, since a guilty mind is normally required to distinguish an accidental act for which criminal prosecution would be unfair versus an act undertaken with criminal intent - purposely, knowingly or recklessly.  The latter type of behavior is more morally culpable and subject to deterrence than inadvertent behavior. 

In recent years, unfortunately, the number of laws eliminating that guilty mind requirement has proliferated.  As legal scholar John Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation observes, that places almost every American under increasing and unknowing criminal jeopardy: 

"Many of these laws do not proscribe conduct that is inherently morally blameworthy.  Rather, many of them criminalize activities that no reasonable person would think are wrong, such as transporting water hyacinths or walking a dog on a leash longer than six feet.  Moreover, many of these laws contain weak mens rea requirements or, in some cases, no mens rea requirements at all.  This means that reasonable, otherwise law-abiding people can end up being convicted of crimes and deprived of their liberty - plus face a host of collateral consequences - for unwittingly committing unlawful acts that perhaps cause some harm, even though the person had no knowledge of the law and certainly no intent to violate it." 

Fortunately, Congress appears willing to rectify the growing menace. 

In the House, Representatives James Sensenbrenner (R - Wisconsin) and Bob Goodlatte (R - Virginia) have introduced the Criminal Code Improvement Act of 2015, which was unanimously approved by the House Judiciary Committee last month.  Under that legislation, any criminal statute passed by Congress that doesn't explicitly specify a mens rea requirement will by default require prosecutors to establish a "knowing" violation by any defendant.  It also specifies that, "if the offense consists of conduct that a reasonable person in the same or similar circumstances would not know, or would not have reason to believe, was unlawful, the government must prove that the defendant knew, or had reason to believe, the conduct was unlawful." 

Over in the Senate, Senator Orrin Hatch (R - Utah) has introduced the Mens Rea Reform Act of 2015.  That bill requires the government to prove a "willful" violation, meaning "that the person acted with knowledge that the person's conduct was unlawful," under any criminal statute passed by Congress that doesn't otherwise specify its mens rea standard. 

Those are standards that all reasonable Americans should support. 

Unsurprisingly, the Obama Administration and many among the activist left oppose those common-sense reforms.  Obama's Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates asserted that the legislation "would provide cover for top-level executives, which is not something we think would be in the best interest of the American people."  And the notoriously unreasonable Center for American Progress alleges that the reforms would diminish the federal government's power to prosecute corporations for environmental crimes. 

Neither claim is true.  The reforms would simply mean that criminal laws would have to actually specify the degree of guilty mind required for criminal prosecution. 

It's sad commentary that the current state of affairs demands legislation to require the government to actually charge criminal intent before subjecting someone to criminal prosecution.  It's even sadder that the Obama Administration and its apologists would stubbornly oppose such reform. 

With enough support from the American electorate, however, improvement appears increasingly possible. 

Notable Quote   
 
"Americans do not trust several major U.S. institutions, including the national news media.The recently released Center Square Voters' Voice poll found that 43% of Americans say the media is trustworthy, compared with 54% who said it is not trustworthy.Younger people were more likely to trust the media, with 47% of those ages 18-34 saying they trust it and 46% saying the opposite.The numbers steadily…[more]
 
 
— Casey Harper, The Center Square
 
Liberty Poll   

Do you believe the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately reject the new Biden administration automobile emissions rule as beyond the scope of administrative agency authority?