America has a crime problem: We treat criminal laws as if they were terms of service on a website — blindly agreeing and praying we’ll never need to know what they say. But it isn’t ordinary Americans who do the clicking; Congress clicks for us.
Worse, most legislators are as blind to what’s inside the laws they enact, or how to enforce them, as your average iTunes user clicking “Yes” on the latest Apple user agreement.
Consider a crime we keep hearing about — obstruction of justice. During his confirmation hearings, Attorney General William Barr sparred with senators about the meaning of the word “corruptly” as it’s used in the obstruction statutes.
Newsom’s ‘Golden State Start’ promises 400 free diapers per baby as California grapples with budget woes
U.S. military kills two alleged narco-terrorists in lethal strike on drug vessel in Eastern Pacific
Reckoning: Islamic Group with Terror Ties Set to Be Investigated by GOP
Trump Preparing to Fire FDA Commissioner Amid Nicotine Dispute and Pro-Life Outcry: Report
Video shows ICE officers arrest alleged MS-13 gang member described as ‘known suspected terrorist’ in Florida
Lawmaker Slaps Phone Out of Reporter’s Hand During Skirmish Over Data Center Story
Green Politician Wants to Limit Nursing Home Residents to 2.8 Oz of Meat per Week Due to Climate Change – That’s Less Than 1 Big Mac … Per Week
Obama Slammed for ‘Disgusting’ Decision to Speak at Event Organized by Man with Troubling Past
Did You Catch It? Trump’s Nat’l Day of Prayer Message Said Something Vital That No Other Day of Prayer Message Ever Said
Utah Supreme Court justice resigns amid probe into alleged relationship with redistricting attorney
Fox News Campus Radicals Newsletter: Men admitted to all-women’s school, bizarre campus confrontation
James Comey criminal trial over ’86 47′ post set for July 15
Georgia mayor fires entire police department after officers complain about his wife in dispute
Virginia Democrat who helped lead state’s redistricting push also played part in killing it
Declassified Apollo mission UFO files challenge long-running Moon landing conspiracy theories
It was just one word, concerning one kind of crime, and yet there was sharp disagreement between the people writing laws and the man who would soon be enforcing them. Special counsel Robert Mueller spent 182 pages analyzing the president’s conduct under those same statutes, only to leave the ultimate question unresolved. When Barr returned for Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Sen. Dianne Feinstein seemed flummoxed when he explained that instructing someone to lie isn’t necessarily a crime.
For answers, many have turned to the cavalcade of legal analysts on cable news declaring assuredly that the president definitely had, or definitely hadn’t, committed obstruction. Those watching at home had to wonder: Shouldn’t there be an actual answer? Isn’t everyone looking at the same law? Surely America’s most telegenic legal minds and seasoned government officials can definitively answer the binary question of whether the president obstructed justice. But they haven’t. Now some are calling on Congress to answer it in impeachment proceedings.
This tiresome exercise could be undertaken with countless other federal laws. Is it a crime to remove a migratory bird that has taken up roost in your house? It depends. Can you cut the tag off a mattress? Again, it depends. What does it depend on? Well, that depends too. Lawyers are conditioned to accept this, but it’s no less unsettling that, even when the facts are clear, lawmakers, law enforcers, judges and lawyers still can’t agree on what the law itself makes a crime.
Newsom’s ‘Golden State Start’ promises 400 free diapers per baby as California grapples with budget woes
U.S. military kills two alleged narco-terrorists in lethal strike on drug vessel in Eastern Pacific
Reckoning: Islamic Group with Terror Ties Set to Be Investigated by GOP
Trump Preparing to Fire FDA Commissioner Amid Nicotine Dispute and Pro-Life Outcry: Report
Video shows ICE officers arrest alleged MS-13 gang member described as ‘known suspected terrorist’ in Florida
Lawmaker Slaps Phone Out of Reporter’s Hand During Skirmish Over Data Center Story
Green Politician Wants to Limit Nursing Home Residents to 2.8 Oz of Meat per Week Due to Climate Change – That’s Less Than 1 Big Mac … Per Week
Obama Slammed for ‘Disgusting’ Decision to Speak at Event Organized by Man with Troubling Past
Did You Catch It? Trump’s Nat’l Day of Prayer Message Said Something Vital That No Other Day of Prayer Message Ever Said
Utah Supreme Court justice resigns amid probe into alleged relationship with redistricting attorney
Fox News Campus Radicals Newsletter: Men admitted to all-women’s school, bizarre campus confrontation
James Comey criminal trial over ’86 47′ post set for July 15
Georgia mayor fires entire police department after officers complain about his wife in dispute
Virginia Democrat who helped lead state’s redistricting push also played part in killing it
Declassified Apollo mission UFO files challenge long-running Moon landing conspiracy theories
It’s not just a federal problem. Nor is it an exclusively political one. The same day that the special counsel released his report, the highest court in the state of Washington issued an evenly split opinion concerning that state’s own obstruction statute. In it, eight justices of the Washington Supreme Court couldn’t agree whether a man’s refusal to open his door for police constituted a crime. There was no real dispute about the facts. There was a statute written in black and white. Yet the court split 4-4.
This kind of ambiguity is a problem for an executive branch charged with enforcing laws and a judiciary that applies them. It may soon become a very public problem for a Congress trying its hand at both. Mostly, however, it threatens all of us who are presumed to know the law, required to comply with it and barred from arguing ignorance of the law as an excuse.
If Congress really is about to embark on impeachment, perhaps lawmakers will learn a valuable lesson in the process. Let them slog through the muck of their own criminal statutes. Let them display how even they can’t agree on what the text of the law means. Then let America be reminded that we had better follow the untold thousands of laws written by these people or go to prison.
Newsom’s ‘Golden State Start’ promises 400 free diapers per baby as California grapples with budget woes
U.S. military kills two alleged narco-terrorists in lethal strike on drug vessel in Eastern Pacific
Reckoning: Islamic Group with Terror Ties Set to Be Investigated by GOP
Trump Preparing to Fire FDA Commissioner Amid Nicotine Dispute and Pro-Life Outcry: Report
Video shows ICE officers arrest alleged MS-13 gang member described as ‘known suspected terrorist’ in Florida
Lawmaker Slaps Phone Out of Reporter’s Hand During Skirmish Over Data Center Story
Green Politician Wants to Limit Nursing Home Residents to 2.8 Oz of Meat per Week Due to Climate Change – That’s Less Than 1 Big Mac … Per Week
Obama Slammed for ‘Disgusting’ Decision to Speak at Event Organized by Man with Troubling Past
Did You Catch It? Trump’s Nat’l Day of Prayer Message Said Something Vital That No Other Day of Prayer Message Ever Said
Utah Supreme Court justice resigns amid probe into alleged relationship with redistricting attorney
Fox News Campus Radicals Newsletter: Men admitted to all-women’s school, bizarre campus confrontation
James Comey criminal trial over ’86 47′ post set for July 15
Georgia mayor fires entire police department after officers complain about his wife in dispute
Virginia Democrat who helped lead state’s redistricting push also played part in killing it
Declassified Apollo mission UFO files challenge long-running Moon landing conspiracy theories
Impeachment or not, the problem is already on display. We spent two years and tens of millions of dollars on an investigation conducted by dozens of lawyers, all for a non-answer on whether one person committed a particular crime. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of us could have violated any of the thousands of criminal laws on the books, and we would be hard-pressed to afford just one lawyer to defend us.
To be sure, criminal conduct is nuanced, and it’s impossible to write a perfect statute. But we shouldn’t ignore the danger in a system where lawmakers, the nation’s top prosecutor or a court of last resort can’t agree on whether something is a crime. Hopefully, lawmakers will soon spend less time politicking and more time making the law clearer.
Story cited here.
