"Criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something," Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch observed in 2019. Gorsuch elaborates on that theme in his new book Over Ruled, showing how the proliferation of criminal penalties has given prosecutors enormous power to ruin people's lives, resulting in the nearly complete replacement of jury trials with plea bargains.
"Some scholars peg the number of federal statutory crimes at more than 5,000," Gorsuch and co-author Janie Nitze note, while "estimates suggest that at least 300,000 federal agency regulations carry criminal sanctions." The fact that neither number is known with precision, they suggest, speaks volumes about the "unpredictable traps for the unwary" set by the government's ever-expanding rules.
