Trump signs order protecting taxpayers from federal ‘overcriminalization’
On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order protecting American taxpayers from what he called federal “overcriminalization.”
The EO notes that the Code of Federal Regulations is over 175,000 pages long and contains over 48,000 sections. American citizens are not only expected to comply with these hundreds of thousands of laws that they haven’t read, but they are even charged criminally for violating many of them. Ignorance of the law is not accepted as a legal defense. Furthermore, some of these crimes are strict liability offenses, which means the defendant need not have criminal intent to be found guilty.
“This status quo is absurd and unjust. It allows the executive branch to write the law, in addition to executing it,” the executive order states. “That situation can lend itself to abuse and weaponization by providing Government officials tools to target unwitting individuals. It privileges large corporations, which can afford to hire expensive legal teams to navigate complex regulatory schemes and fence out new market entrants, over average Americans.
“The purpose of this order is to ease the regulatory burden on everyday Americans and ensure no American is transformed into a criminal for violating a regulation they have no reason to know exists.”
Strict liability is now disfavored
The order establishes US policy as now disfavoring criminal enforcement of strict liability crimes. Criminal intent, or mens rea as it is referred to in Latin legal terms, should be a prerequisite for criminal prosecution as much as possible.
“Prosecution of criminal regulatory offenses is most appropriate for persons who know or can be presumed to know what is prohibited or required by the regulation and willingly choose not to comply, thereby causing or risking substantial public harm. Prosecutions of criminal regulatory offenses should focus on matters where a putative defendant is alleged to have known his conduct was unlawful.”
Regulatory transparency
All federal agencies will be required to publish on their websites a list of applicable criminal regulatory offenses, the possible punishments, and the mens rea standard for each. Criminal prosecution for violations of any laws not on the lists is “strongly discouraged.” The lists are to be updated each year.
