A retired racecar driver on a snowmobile outing in Colorado gets lost in a blizzard and unwittingly crosses into a National Forest Wilderness Area, where motorized vehicles are prohibited. A Native Alaskan trapper sells 10 sea otters to a buyer he mistakenly believes is also a Native Alaskan. An 11-year-old Virginia girl rescues a baby woodpecker from her cat. The first two of these incidents resulted in misdemeanor and felony convictions, respectively, while the third led to a fine (later rescinded) and threats of prosecution. All three qualify as federal crimes, even though the perpetrators had no idea they were breaking the law—a kind of injustice that would be addressed by reforms that opponents falsely portray as a special favor to corporate polluters and other felonious fat cats.
The federal code contains something like 5,000 criminal statutes and describes an estimated 30,000 regulatory violations that can be treated as crimes. The fact that no one knows the precise numbers is itself a scandal, writes Jacob Sullum. And it’s compounded by the fact that many of these provisions include minimal or no mens rea requirements, which specify the mental state required for conviction.
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