Comments on: Fowler, Federalization, and Statutory Interpretation

By: Trying to Hire a Hit Man? Don’t Answer Your Cell Phone « Life Sentences Blog

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:38:50 +0000

[...] In all of these counts, what triggers federal jurisdiction seems only incidental to the offense; it is not the use of a cell phone or a car that made the defendant’s conduct dangerous and his intentions blameworthy. Mandel would merit no less punishment if he had communicated with the c.i. by sign language or smoke signals, or if he had gotten around by roller-skating. It is this lack of a meaningful connection between the jurisdictional element and the wrongfulness of the defendant’s conduct that gives federal prosecution such an arbitrary character in so many cases. But, for better or worse, that is where we are in the modern world of Commerce Clause jurisprudence. (Note, though, the Supreme Court’s interest in maintaining some sort of principled limitations on federal criminal jurisdiction in this interesting case from last term.) [...]

By: Competing Approaches to Interpreting Criminal Statutes « Life Sentences Blog

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 03:28:16 +0000

[...] but to quasi-constitutional concerns relating to governmental structure. A good recent example is Fowler v. United States, which emphasized the need to interpret federal criminal statutes narrowly so as to preserve the [...]

By: Defendant Can Raise Tenth Amendment Challenge to Her Convision, SCOTUS Rules « Life Sentences Blog

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:50:58 +0000

[...] conduct that is “local in nature.” Still, it is interesting to put Bond alongside last month’s decision in Fowler, in which the Court cited similar federalism concerns in rejecting an expansive interpretation of a [...]