“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 a new book, 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 coauthor Janie Nitze note in “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law,” while “estimates suggest that at least 300,000 federal agency regulations carry criminal sanctions.” The fact that neither figure is known with precision speaks volumes about the expansion of federal law.
