By George Bao LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- Too many criminal codes in the United States have put many innocent Americans in jail, wasted huge amount of American tax payers dollars, and there is a strong voice in the country to put it to an end.
It is reported that every year, overly-ambitious prosecutors and rogue judges in the U.S. bent on forcing their beliefs on the American justice system uses thousands of obscure unknown laws to put innocent Americans just in jail.
Since the 1980s, the United States Criminal Code has added nearly 1,500 new criminal offenses. There are now over 4,500 crimes that can put Americans in jail for.
Mahsa Saeidi-Azcue, former assistant district attorney from Brooklyn, New York, wrote on National Review that with over 4,500 federal crimes and over 300,000 regulations with criminal penalties, it is overcriminalization, and it has left U.S. Attorneys with a wide selection of crimes with which to charge people.
Saeidi-Azcue wrote that many of these obscure laws have led to unreasonable arrests and unjust prosecutions. These costly overcriminalization policies amount to both federal waste and government overreach.
She said that any one can be targeted and imprisoned. A homeowner can be arrested for failure to prune her shrubs, in violation of the city's municipal code. A small-business owner can do time for lack of proper paperwork when importing orchids.
When the new health-care law goes into effect, everyone, with the exception of unions and other exempt parties, will face severe penalties for failure to purchase government-approved insurance, she continued.
Refusal to comply with the new health-care regulations is a federal violation punishable by a fine and or imprisonment, she wrote.
In her opinion, the grander issue of wasteful government spending is still salient, but overcriminalization, while a part of that issue, also has large negative implications for the immediate livelihood of the American people.
While at her father's house near Fredricksburg, Virginia, on June 13, 11-year old Skylar Capo rescued a baby woodpecker from being eaten by her cat.
But her kindness has caused herself and the family into trouble. They went to their local home improvement store for some supplies, bringing the bird into the store with them.
Unfortunately, an undercover agent from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced herself to the family and told them that under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act the woodpecker is a protected species, and that they need to release the bird because transporting it was illegal.
The young girl and her mother released the bird and called the Wildlife Service to let them know. Two weeks later, that same agent came back to their home with a state trooper and told the family they owed the government 535 dollars for their "crime" and could face imprisonment - just for rescuing a baby bird.
CBS reported the story and got a lot sympathy and support from local residents. Had the story not broken out by the local press, this girl and her mother might be in jail, unable to afford the defense needed to combat their alleged crime.
Abner (Abbie) Schoenwetter is another victim cited by the Heritage Foundation. He owned a successful seafood restaurant and imported his shrimp from Honduras. For over a decade he imported shrimp from the same exporter and in the same fashion: plastic bags.
Then one day U.S. federal agents arrested him, saying that because the shrimp he imported were wrapped in plastic and not cardboard he violated a Honduran regulation.
The Attorney General of Honduras wrote a letter on Abner's behalf saying that the regulation "were not applicable to Abbie' s case."
But this did not save poor Abner. He spent six and a half years in prison for this "crime" and is now on parole for three more years. He went broke and lost everything trying to defend himself; his family, business and health were all destroyed because of some obscure law he never intended to break and never knew existed.
It is reported that every year, overly-ambitious prosecutors and rogue judges in the U.S. bent on forcing their beliefs on the American justice system uses thousands of obscure unknown laws to put innocent Americans just in jail.
Since the 1980s, the United States Criminal Code has added nearly 1,500 new criminal offenses. There are now over 4,500 crimes that can put Americans in jail for.
While it is difficult to know exactly how much money the government spends to prosecute a single case, the Heritage Foundation cited another example: Auto-racing legend Bobby Unser got lost in a blizzard, almost died, and was later convicted for operating a snow mobile in the natural wilderness.
He faced 5,000 dollars of fine and a six-month prison sentence, but the federal government spent approximately one million dollars to prosecute Mr. Unser.
In addition to the cost of prosecution, there are also costs associated with imprisonment.
According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, the federal inmate population was 211,176 as of March this year. The average cost of incarceration for one federal inmate in fiscal year 2009 was 25,251 dollars.
The Conservative Action Alerts in the U.S. urged Americans to write to the U.S. Congress, asking Congressional members to stop these laws.
"Any new criminal law should be reviewed using the Criminal Law Checklist for Federal Legislators, which was put together by a wide variety of different organizations. It should be fair, should fall in line with the U.S. Constitution and also follow the rule of law," the Conservative Actions Alerts said in an e-mail.
It said that the U.S. Congress should justify all new crimes. A detailed report should be required for any new law, describing the problem that is supposed to be solved by the new law, cases which necessitate the new law and what other laws this new one will overlap with.
