Free Republic

America Criminalizes Too Much and Punishes Too MuchWhen those on parole or probation are included, one out of every 47 adults is under “some form of correctional supervision.”Not only have we adopted more criminal laws at an astonishing clip, but the punishments our criminal laws carry have also grown markedly. Beginning in earnest in the second half of the 20th century, legislatures began to adopt laws that had, as Judge Jed Rakoff has noted, "two common characteristics: they imposed higher penalties, and they removed much of judicial dis-cretion in sentencing." Notable among these laws were statutes imposing mandatory minimum terms...

Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that the United States has too many federal laws.Host Shannon Bream said, “I think it will be eye opening to the American people, the idea that so pretty much of our conduct is over regulated and over criminalized many cases. Apparently you and are committing felonies every day without possibly even knowing it.”Gorsuch said, “I think that might be true. Some professors say there are now so many federal laws on the books that every American over the age of 18 commits one felony a...

‘He wouldn’t have needed a license if it were an iguana,” Justice Neil Gorsuch says. That sounds like a punch line, but “he” in this story is Marty Hahne, a Missouri magician. “It,” the non-iguana, is Mr. Hahne’s live rabbit. As a magical prop, the bunny is a classic, and probably more easygoing than a big lizard would be about getting yanked out of a hat for shrieking children. Justice Gorsuch, seated at a coffee table in his Supreme Court chambers, is narrating an anecdote from his book that goes on sale Tuesday, “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too...

On July 31, I met with Justice Neil Gorsuch in his chambers at the Supreme Court for a wide-ranging interview about his new book, “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law.” His co-author, Janie Nitze, a former clerk of his, was present for the interview as well. I didn’t get to ask every question I wanted to, but our conversation covered a lot of ground, including Gorsuch’s indictment of the regulatory state, his approach to evaluating agency expertise, the problem of mass incarceration and coercive plea bargaining, his jurisprudence holding the United States accountable for its obligations to...