[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11613-11614]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        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.

[[Page 11614]]

  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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