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“CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H5180-H5181 on July 15, 2015.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) for 5 minutes.
Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I participated in a hearing on criminal justice reform before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. A second hearing is being held today on this issue in the same committee. At both hearings, conservatives and liberals are joining together to urge that we stop or at least try to slow the growth of our Federal police state.
Conservative columnist George Will wrote a few months ago:
``Overcriminalization has become a national plague.''
Paul Larkin, senior legal research fellow at the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, wrote in The Washington Times:
``Today, there are perhaps 4,500 Federal offenses--and more than 300,000 relevant regulations--on the books. No one knows exactly how many. The Justice Department and the American Bar Association each tried to identify every crime and failed.''
Mr. Larkin continued: ``No reasonable person, not even a judge or lawyer, could possibly know all of these legal prohibitions, although criminal penalties are attached to each.''
John Baker, a retired Louisiana State University law professor said:
``There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some Federal crime.''
He added: ``That is not an exaggeration.''
Mr. Speaker, I have special interests in this because, for 7\1/2\ years before coming to Congress, I was a criminal court judge in Tennessee trying the felony criminal cases. I believe in being tough on crime, and I have been a very strong supporter of local law enforcement, the people on the front lines who are fighting the real crime, the violent crime that everyone is so concerned about.
I remember in 1993 reading an article in Forbes magazine, one of the Nation's most conservative magazines. This article said that we had quadrupled the Justice Department just between 1980 and 1993 and that Federal prosecutors were falling all over themselves trying to find cases to prosecute. We have kept on expanding the Justice Department since then and have had explosive growth in the number of Federal crimes.
We have had far too many cases where overzealous prosecutors have prosecuted high-profile defendants just so that a prosecutor could make a name for himself. I remember the totally unjustified case against Secretary of Labor, Ray Donovan, in which, after he was acquitted, made the famous statement: ``Where do I go to get my reputation back?''
Our Federal Government has become far too big, and it is far too powerful. We all have heard how particularly the IRS is running roughshod over individual citizens. Newsweek magazine a few years had on its cover: ``Inside The IRS--Lawless, Abusive, and Out of Control.''
Unfortunately, while there are many good Federal prosecutors, there are far too many of them and, unfortunately, some who, like the IRS, are lawless, abusive, and out of control.
Mr. Speaker, there are now so many laws, rules, and regulations on the books today that people are being prosecuted for violating laws they didn't even know were in existence.
Paul Larkin, whom I quoted earlier, said that we need a ``mistake of law'' defense. An innocent mistake is not supposed to be criminal, but a zealous prosecutor can make even an innocent mistake look criminal, and there is an old saying that a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich if he wanted to.
Almost everyone has violated some tax law--they are so convoluted and confusing--and almost every person in any type of business has unknowingly violated some law, rule, or regulation for which they could be prosecuted.
That is why, yesterday, we had at our hearing a conservative Republican like Senator John Cornyn, a former justice of the Texas Supreme Court; and Senator Cory Booker, a liberal Democrat; and a conservative like Representative Sensenbrenner; and a liberal like Representative Bobby Scott--all joining together to urge reform.
Lastly, let me mention one other aspect of our Nation's crime problem. In my years as a judge, I handled over 10,000 cases because probably 97 or 98 percent of the defendants enter some type of guilty plea and then apply for probation.
Every day, for 7\1/2\ years, I would read several 8- or 10-page reports into a defendant's background, and I would read, ``Defendant's father left home when defendant was 2 and never returned,'' or
``Defendant's father left home to get a pack of cigarettes and never came back.''
Mr. Speaker, over 90 percent of the defendants in felony cases in my court came from father-absent households. Drugs and/or alcohol are involved in most cases, but they are secondary to the absent father problem.
Years ago, I read a report that said 57 percent of marriages break up in arguments, disputes, or disagreements about money. As government has grown so much at all levels, Federal, State, and local over the past 40 or 50 years, it has become a major factor in the breakup of the American family by taking so much money and making it so much more difficult for families to stay together.
This, Mr. Speaker, has had a major impact on our Nation's crime problem.
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