Overcriminalization

To ensure that we all have constitutionally adequate notice of criminal laws before anyone’s life or liberty is substantially limited for violating such laws, Due Process Institute’s work is guided by the following principles:

• All newly-proposed criminal laws must properly consider if a criminal penalty is even an appropriate and necessary sanction since the government has relied upon its power to criminalize far too often and has ignored other common sense approaches. The federal government has also too often ignored the role states play in addressing criminal law concerns. 
• Most first-time “paperwork violations” ought not to lead to a jail sentence and neither should offenses that actually end up criminalizing poverty, addiction, or mental illness. We need to end our dependence on criminal law being the first or only solution to our country’s challenges.
• Criminal laws should not contain vague or overly broad terms that lead to confusion about what laws mean or that allow unfair enforcement of the laws.
• Judicially created doctrines such as Pinkerton criminal conspiracy liability and the “willful blindness” theory of criminal culpability should be rationally and fairly limited or abolished altogether.
• In existing criminal cases, we support the judicial doctrine of the “rule of lenity,” which is rooted in constitutional principles. The rule applies in situations where the court recognizes the existence of more than one interpretation of a criminal law. It requires the court to select the interpretation least harmful to the accused in such cases.