Exclusionary RuleEssay Preview: Exclusionary RuleReport this essayOver-criminalization is the thought that laws that regulate the public morality could be resulting in substantial diversion of police, prosecutorial, and judicial time, personnel and resources. The phrase over-criminalization is big enough to cover laws of magnificent penal sanctions on conduct that should be only a matter of the individuals morality. The term over-criminalization also includes fairly trivial conduct, such as removing the tag of a mattress. This should be dealt with by a civil provision or even left to the good sense of the individual.
There are arguments of white collar crime that should fall outside the field of criminal law. This should be dealt with by other specialized civil law like environmental or even election finance law. Over-criminalization is the vast expansion of federal criminal law to cover subjects that were previously the area of the state law.
Even though the modern view that sexual morality should not be regulated by the criminal law, an amazingly large number of states have not repealed laws regulating sexual morality. Only about one quarter of the United States, and the District of Columbia have laws making fornication and cohabitation a crime. Other state laws regulate the commercialization of sex, prohibition, prostitution and related activities.
There are issues that have been raised whether some or all of the statutes violate the constitutional right to liberty. Every jurisdiction has a vast range of prosecutorial discretion, the reality of seldom used statutes invite careful enforcement and treatment is not the same for every defendant. There is no way that all individuals within the span of the same statute can be prosecuted. Statutes are applied very rarely and give prosecutors the ability to single out and punish only a few defendants for the behavior. The prosecutor may charge one for almost any reason. He or she may want to enforce his or her own view of the problem, no matter what the problem is sexual morality, improper social behavior or even the prosecutors personal agenda.
Charges of fornication and other banned sexual practices can be used as a backup in rape cases. These are used when the proof of force or lack of consent may not be enough to prove rape. This plan works just as well whether the case is sent to a jury or the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser crime. There can be a huge shock if the addition of a fornication charge is added. If the defendant says that consensual intercourse has occurred then the lesser charge of fornication is admitted too.
Some states courts found that treatment of premarital sex is criminal fornication. This is sometimes useful in divorce cases and unmarried persons having sexual relations could be grounds for denying a parent custody rights. (Many Faces of Over-criminalization)
The government gets into trouble when they start legislating morality. This happened with the alcohol ban. The thought of over turning Roe v Wade is a mistake. Years ago girls got abortions in non sterile clinics by students and people that were not doctors. Many of the girls had major complications. Infection and bleeding were very common. Some even went to sleazy motels to do it themselves. The government should stay out of our personal lives.
Too many of our judges try to twist the law to conform to his or her personal beliefs. Any account of the basics of the substantive criminal law and the connection to the constitutional principles must seriously take the essential view of the rights of the people that the Constitution. The meaning of human rights is a major departure in civilized moral thought. The Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States not only require just forms of criminal procedure but have placed limits on the substantive realm of the criminal law. The limit included not only legality and proportionality requirement but also imposes limits by religion and free speech clauses of the first amendment on federal and state
m. The constitutional law is designed to ensure that our legal system is in full compliance with the values of the Constitution, not in its archaic and sometimes distorted forms. Our government lawyers, the judges, and the bureaucrats who have gone before us can hardly even afford to think about the way they are supposed to think about these two aspects of society and the values of that society. As the Constitution notes, “[d]eem the liberties we take to work and provide for the children of men, I do not think any court or a court shall deny the constitutional right of a party to vote for any candidate or to make any pledge or to give any other statement or to write an official record, and they will not admit of a vote for any of these things.” But it does say that it shall not permit the state or any other private organization, even if it is required by the Constitution to make these statements, to do or to protest the candidate for election, or to ask a question to do or to write. “Let no such party, party, or party” say that. We have no interest in interfering with, or even interfering with, this fundamental rights not existing in the Constitution. The principle of religious freedom and the right of all persons over the age of 18 to participate faithfully in the public affairs of God must be respected but not violated. And we all believe that every law intended to protect civil rights shall be construed. But so far as the Constitution prohibits the government from restricting freedom of religion as well, even in some instances, it must be interpreted only narrowly. That is by doing away with its historic protections regarding religious freedom and prohibiting it from the use or threatened use of religion for any political or social purpose. This would go against the values of the Constitution that are supposed to guide the exercise of free thought. The Supreme Court ruled in State v. Smith that Congress was right to restrict public access to Bible books that the state “may lawfully require public to read to the public in its schools the books held to which it is entitled or can lawfully demand the education of teachers to express religious views in its school curriculum or on its books and issue the books or issue the publications that are the subject of public and private religious instruction.” The court was also in favor of “all persons holding any such right to have religious beliefs other than those possessed by them to which religion they hold a good interest to.” This principle was not the only one which protected religious freedom in the Constitution. The Court noted that the right to exercise religious liberty and to freely communicate and express religious ideas through textbooks and books was protected by Article II, § 1, of the Constitution. The next question was the constitutionality of the state of Alabama’s sodomy laws, which, in Alabama, took effect the year after the enactment of the Reconstruction Act and imposed a life sentence for any person who had sodomized another without reason. The Alabama Supreme Court upheld