White-collar crimes are a big concern in our modern world, and they often go unnoticed because they don't involve physical violence. These financially motivated crimes can harm individuals, businesses, and even entire economies. To make sense of how the law handles these crimes, it's important to understand the scopes of criminal liability – who can be held responsible for these offenses and under what conditions.
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This column was first published in The Hill on February 20, 2018. The web has been ablaze over the ignorance displayed by Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who showed himself unaware of the Anglo-American legal heritage. Schatz revealed his lack of knowledge by mistaking Attorney General Jeff Session’s reference to that heritage for a racist dog whistle. For those who have been living on Pluto — or serving in Congress — the phrases “Anglo-American heritage” and “Anglo-American legal system” are standard ways of referring to the…
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After a year of delays,* an article on how the Constitution uses the word “emoluments” has finally appeared. The study indirectly absolves President Trump of claims that he is violating the Constitution by receiving profits from enterprises whose customers include foreign governments. The article is called The Original Meaning of “Emoluments” in the Constitution, and it was published by Georgia Law Review. It was the result of impartial research: Unlike most articles of the type, it was not designed to serve as…
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In recent months, Hillary Clinton has made numerous inaccurate statements about those Americans working for what the Constitution calls a “convention for proposing amendments.” Because of Clinton’s national standing, her claims merit a response. Under Article V of the Constitution, when two-thirds of the state legislatures (34) pass matching resolutions called “applications,” Congress must call a convention to propose, not enact, constitutional reforms. The idea is to allow Americans, working through their state legislatures, to propose amendments the Washington, DC…
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An earlier version of his column appeared in The Hill on February 6, 2018. Once again, this year we were threatened with a federal government “shutdown.” Well, for the future this citizen out in the hinterland says, “Bring it on!” Most of the interrupted functions aren’t really constitutional anyway, and we could do well without them. In fact, we should defund some of them permanently to help close the federal deficit. Most of the affected workers wouldn’t be out of…
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