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CRIMINAL CODE REFORM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVER-CRIMINALIZATION TASK FORCE OF 2014 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FEBRUARY 28, 2014 

Serial No. 113–71 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

JASON T. SMITH, Missouri 

[Vacant] 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

JOE GARCIA, Florida 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 

OVER-CRIMINALIZATION TASK FORCE OF 2013 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., Wisconsin, Chairman 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas, Vice-Chairman 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

KAREN BASS, California 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

CAROLINE LYNCH, Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

FEBRUARY 28, 2014 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, Over-Criminalization Task 

Force of 2014 ........................................................................................................ 1 

The Honorable Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Virginia, and Ranking Member, Over-Criminalization Task 

Force of 2014 ........................................................................................................ 2 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 2 

WITNESSES 

Michael Volkov, CEO, The Volkov Law Group LLC 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 13 

Julie Rose O’Sullivan, Professor, Georgetown University Law Center 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 23 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 24 

Roger A. Fairfax, Jr., George Washington University Law School 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 24 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 27 

John D. Cline, Esquire, Law Office of John D. Cline 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 41 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 43 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, OverCriminalization Task Force of 2014 ................................................................... 2 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Ranking Member, OverCriminalization Task Force of 2014 ................................................................... 3 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 6 

Witness Biographies/Introductions submitted by the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, 

and Chairman, Over-Criminalization Task Force of 2014 ................................ 7 

(1) 

CRIMINAL CODE REFORM 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

OVER-CRIMINALIZATION TASK FORCE OF 2014 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Task Force met, pursuant to call, at 9:01 a.m., in room 2237, 

Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, 

Jr. (Chairman of the Task Force) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Sensenbrenner, Goodlatte, Bachus, 

Gohmert, Labrador, Conyers, Scott, Cohen, Johnson, Bass, and 

Jeffries. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Robert Parmiter, Counsel; Alicia 

Church, Clerk; and (Minority) Ron LeGrand, Counsel. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The Over-Criminalization Task Force hearing will come to order, and without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Task Force at any time. 

I will recognize myself for an opening statement. Good morning 

and welcome to the fifth hearing of the Judiciary Committee’s 

Over-Criminalization Task Force. During its first 6 months, the 

Task Force conducted an in-depth evaluation of the over-criminalization problem. We held four hearings, focusing on the lack of a 

consistent and adequate mens rea requirement in the Federal code, 

and the problems associated with regulatory crime. 

Earlier this month, the Committee took the important step of reauthorizing the Task Force for an additional 6 months. We intend 

to conduct hearings on a variety of topics, including penalties, overfederalization, and the perspectives of various executive and judicial agencies. Today’s hearing will focus on criminal code reform. 

The criminal code is a mess. Rather than a well-organized, systematic tool for enforcing important Federal criminal statutes, the 

code is riddled with provisions that are outdated, redundant, or 

simply inconsistent with more recent modifications to reflect today’s modern approach to criminal law. 

This is due, at least in part, to Congress’ penchant for legislating 

in a vacuum in a politically popular manner, or in a rapid response 

to a crisis or a national news story, instead of thoughtfully and deliberately. 

The resulting code is a vast chaotic, disorganized amalgamation 

of Federal criminal statutes that is difficult to use for practitioners 

and nearly incomprehensible for the average American. The size 
2 

and disorganization makes it extraordinarily difficult to ferret out 

the law applicable to a particular factual situation, which does a 

great disservice to the public. 

Because we will be voting at 10:30 this morning, and I doubt 

anybody is going to come back after the votes, I am going to ask 

unanimous consent to put the rest of my statement into the record, 

and hope that other Members will do the same. 

And with that, I will recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. 

Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, a code is defined as a systematic and comprehensive compilation of laws, rules, regulations that are consolidated 

and classified according to subject matter. What we refer to as our 

criminal code is anything but systematic. 

Taking a clue from the Chair, we have asked the Congressional 

Research Service to give us the most accurate and current count 

of the criminal provisions in the code. Their initial response is that 

is too hard to do. We hope to hear from them in the near future. 

But rather than take time to utilize evidence-based research in 

drafting criminal law legislation, we have responded in a knee-jerk 

fashion, charging ahead with the failed tough-on-crime legislation. 

In order to appease public opinion by addressing the crime of the 

day, we fail to use evidence-based approaches to fashion criminal 

penalties. 

For example, we frequently use absurd mandatory minimums to 

address drug laws when we know that evidence has suggested that 

it is much more effective in treating and prevention, than mandatory minimums and long sentences. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the rest of the testimony, and 

I will put the rest of my statement in the record. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. With the same hint that Mr. Scott has 

taken, I will recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Sensenbrenner. I, too, will 

follow the leads that have been set out for me. 

I just want to emphasize that we have an explosive growth of the 

Federal criminal code. We have counted 4,450 Federal crimes on 

the books. 

And this hearing, among other things, is to determine how the 

criminal code should be modernized. And the cost, I have detailed 

here in my opening statement, and I will make some more comments about it. 

And I will put the rest into the record, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I thank the gentleman. 

Without objection, all Members’ opening statements will appear 

in the record at this point. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sensenbrenner follows:] 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin, and Chairman, OverCriminalization Task Force of 2014 

Good morning and welcome to the fifth hearing of the Judiciary Committee’s 

Over-Criminalization Task Force. During its first six months, the Task Force conducted an in-depth evaluation of the over-criminalization problem. We held four 

hearings, focusing on the lack of a consistent and adequate mens rea requirement 
3 

in the federal code and the problems associated with regulatory crime. Earlier this 

month, the Committee took the important step of re-authorizing the Task Force for 

an additional six months. We intend to conduct hearings on a variety of topics, including penalties, over-federalization, and the perspectives of the various Executive 

and Judicial agencies. Today’s hearing will focus on Criminal Code Reform. 

The federal Criminal Code is a mess. Rather than a well-organized, systemic tool 

for enforcing important federal criminal statutes, the Code is riddled with provisions 

that are outdated, redundant, or simply inconsistent with more recent modifications 

to reflect today’s modern approach to criminal law. This is due, at least in part, to 

Congress’s penchant for legislating in a vacuum, in a politically popular manner, or 

in rapid response to a crisis or national news story, instead of thoughtfully and deliberately. The resulting Code is a vast, chaotic, disorganized amalgamation of 

criminal statutes that is difficult to use for practitioners and nearly incomprehensible to the average American. This size and disorganization makes it extraordinarily difficult to ferret out the law applicable to a particular factual situation, 

which does a great disservice to the public. 

Another major problem for the Code is the lack of clear, concise definitions; indeed, some scholars consider the real problem of over-criminalization to be qualitative, not quantitative. Last year, the Task Force encountered this problem with 

respect to the disparate and ill-defined criminal intent requirements scattered 

throughout the Code. However, mens rea is certainly not the only area where this 

is a problem. The Code is replete with undefined and inconsistently-applied terms. 

For example, the term ‘‘serious bodily injury’’ is used hundreds of times throughout 

the Code. However, there are at least two different definitions of this term. There 

are many instances where the term is undefined, or where the section refers the 

reader to another section of the Code, which criminalizes wholly unrelated conduct, 

for a definition of the term. 

The Code also suffers from problems of redundancy. For example, the Supreme 

Court estimated in 1997 that there were at least 100 separate sections in the Code 

criminalizing false statements—and we know that the penalties imposed by these 

separate sections are all over the map. This redundancy means that two people may 

be punished differently under federal law for the same conduct, depending on which 

statute the government chooses to use. That is clearly not what Congress intended, 

and is a particular concern of mine. 

Over the last several sessions of Congress, I have introduced legislation to consolidate and streamline the federal code. The Criminal Code Modernization and Simplification Act cuts more than one-third of the existing Criminal Code, reorganizes 

the Code to make it more user-friendly, and consolidates criminal offenses from 

other titles so that Title 18 includes all major criminal provisions. During its work 

on code reform, I hope the Task Force will carefully consider the drafting principles 

contained in H.R. 1860. The bill is a mere 1,200 pages, so it should be easy for the 

Task Force to vett it. 

The issue of code reform is a worthy exercise for the Judiciary Committee and 

this Task Force. We have a responsibility to ensure that the criminal laws passed 

by this body—which can deprive citizens of life, liberty, and property—are carefully 

and thoughtfully drafted, and clearly identify the prohibited conduct. 

I want to thank all the witnesses for appearing today, and especially want to welcome Mr. Volkov back to the Committee. I look forward to hearing your perspectives 

on this important issue. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Scott follows:] 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Ranking Member, 

Over-Criminalization Task Force of 2014 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A ‘‘Code’’ is defined as, ‘‘a systematic and comprehensive compilation of laws, 

rules, or regulations that are consolidated and classified according to subject matter.’’ 

What we refer to as our criminal code is anything but systematic. It is neither 

thoughtful nor is it organized in a way that gives citizens fair notice of which behavior is lawful and which might land them in jail. 

For years we and others have acknowledged that federal criminal law has dramatically expanded in size and scope over recent decades. We’re very familiar with 

the history of this increase. Federal criminal law grew from 165 offenses in the year 
4 

1900 to 2,000 offenses by 1970, and then expanded to 4,000 federal crimes in 2003. 

By June 2008, 452 more criminal provisions had been added. 

The problem has become so serious that the term, ‘‘over-criminalization’’ has been 

coined to describe how Congress has criminalized behavior that too often is not, by 

its very nature ‘‘criminal’’. 

Truthfully, we don’t really know the actual number of federal criminal provisions. 

We’ve asked the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress to give 

us their most accurate and current count of provisions in the Code, although their 

initial response was that it would be hard to calculate; we hope to hear from them 

in the near future, although their initial response was that it would be hard to calculate. 

What we do know is that the current body of laws that we refer to as the Federal 

Criminal Code is overly broad and very often poorly defined. We have unnecessary 

and redundant federal crimes that overlap state criminal justice systems. They create a network of criminal statutes that exponentially increase citizens’ exposure to 

prosecution with no regard to the crushing economic, human and societal costs of 

over-incarceration. 

Too often we haven’t considered these costs. Too often this increase or expansion 

in the Federal Criminal Code is an outcome of a politically expedient response to 

a public crisis or a tragic event. That crisis might be a surge in gang activity, a 

breakdown on Wall Street, or a perceived increase in misconduct or corruption on 

the part of public officials. 

Rather than take the time to utilize evidence-based research in the drafting of legislation, we have responded in knee-jerk fashion, charging ahead with failed ‘‘tough 

on crime’’ determination in order to appease public opinion by addressing the crisis 

of the day. We have failed to use evidence based approaches to shape the penalties 

imposed. For example, we have frequently resorted to the use of absurd mandatory 

minimums and long sentences for drug possession when prevention and treatment 

consistently are found to be more effective than the drug war. 

As a result, the United States imprisons more people per capita and in actual 

numbers than any nation on the planet. We have two and a half million people behind bars here. While the United States represents 5% of the world’s population, 

we’ve got 25% of the world’s reported prison population. While most of the world 

incarcerates at a rate of about 50–200 people per 100,000, the U.S. is the world’s 

worst incarcerator with over 700 per 100,000. Research tells us, however, that anything over 500 per 100,000 is considered counterproductive. As a nation, we’ve made 

some very bad choices. We’ve adopted well-meaning, but wrong-headed policies that 

have turned America’s criminal justice system into one over-ridden with slogans and 

sound bites that do nothing to reduce crime. 

With all of the focus on ‘‘tough on crime’’ and ‘‘locking people up and throwing 

away the key’’, we’ve devoted too little attention to these policies’ actual effect on 

crime and to the tragic and life-altering consequences that face individuals, families 

and communities after conviction. 

It’s time we pressed the ‘‘Pause’’ button and asked ourselves, ‘‘What is it that we 

seek to accomplish?’’ 

Despite the differences we’ve encountered from time to time, as Members of Congress, we all share many of the same set of goals, and I believe that we’re striving 

to fulfill the same responsibilities. For example, we want to: 

• protect the safety of our fellow citizens and the security of our nation; 

• safeguard the civil rights to which everyone in this country is entitled; 

• prevent and combat violent crime, financial fraud, and threats to the most 

vulnerable members of society; 

• improve the effectiveness of our criminal justice systems. 

We’ve invited today’s witnesses, all experts, to give us their thoughts about criminal code reform. How do we achieve reform? What should be the process? Who are 

the stakeholders to be included in the discussion? Is the creation of another commission necessary, similar to the Brown Commission created a few decades ago? What 

lessons can be learned from that and other commissions and task forces that have 

taken on this challenge in the past? Where do we begin? 

In the Crime Subcommittee as well as in this Task Force we have discussed specific reforms suggested by various coalitions. Those suggested reforms have included 

recommendations that Congress establish a default criminal intent mens rea standard to assure that there is a criminal intent standard for any existing criminal provision that does not specify one. It’s also been suggested that Congress provide writ-
5 

ten analyses of, and justification for, all new or modified criminal offenses and penalties. 

The recommendations further provided that, in order to avoid adding to the problems of over-criminalization, Congress should ask these hard questions before enacting new criminal laws: 

• Do we need to enact more criminal laws at the federal level for a particular 

type of conduct, or would civil penalties accomplish our goals? 

• Is there a valid purpose to be served by creating criminal law at the federal 

level when it duplicates an existing state level law? 

• Would it be a better use of resources for the federal government to supplement state enforcement of criminal laws rather than replicating their efforts 

at the federal level? 

And Congress should also be asking these same questions about the thousands 

of civil laws that can be found throughout the federal code. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Conyers follows:] 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary 

In past hearings, this bipartisan Over-Criminalization Task Force has recognized 

the explosive growth in the federal criminal code. We now have more than 4,450 

federal crimes on the books. 

More than 1,500 of these crimes are codified in Title 18 of the U.S. Code, and 

many others are scattered elsewhere, such as Title 8, which deals with immigration, 

and Title 21, which concerns controlled substances. 

Today we consider whether and how the Criminal Code should be modernized. 

In undertaking this task, however, there are several factors we should keep in 

mind. 

To begin with, the financial ramifications of our Nation’s criminal system should 

be considered. 

Federal prisons currently house more than 200,000 people at an annual cost to 

taxpayers in billions of dollars. 

More than half of these inmates, however, are serving time for drug offenses, 

many of which are non-violent. And, 11% of the prison population has been convicted of immigration violations. We must also not forget the fact that the United States spends $51 billion annually on the ‘‘war on drugs’’ and its disproportionate impact on minorities. 

It is clear that drug and immigration laws are very real contributors to over-criminalization and over-incarceration, all of which come with a huge cost. 

Second, further clarification of the Criminal Code’s mens rea requirements is 

needed. 

For example, 17 of the 91 federal criminal offenses enacted between 2000 and 

2007 lacked any mens rea requirement. 

In the absence of such a standard, innocent individuals can be convicted for acts 

where it may not even be clear that a crime has been committed. 

But the mens rea standard must be clear. Laws in the Criminal Code exist that 

provide so many paths by which mens rea can be evidenced for a single criminal 

act, that it becomes incredibly confusing to prosecutors and the courts to determine 

which standards must be met. 

As Professor Julie O’Sullivan has written, and who I am happy to say will be able 

to shed more light on the subject today through her testimony, the Code includes 

over 100 types of mens rea standards, which may not be applied uniformly even within a single statute. 

This has led to a massive expansion of prosecutorial discretion, which is one of 

the problems this Task Force has been created to address. 

Lastly, the ever-expanding prosecutorial discretion inherent in the Criminal Code 

must be addressed. 

Too frequently, the Code contains multiple statutes that have overlapping provisions for a single offense. 

Often these overlaps provide different evidentiary requirements that must be 

proven to result in a conviction, some easier and some more difficult. 

This allows prosecutors to cherry pick the statutes with which they will charge 

defendants, which will usually be those containing the easier to prove elements. 
6 

Even more concerning is that these vague and internally inconsistent criminal 

statutes regularly contain different maximum sentences for what would otherwise 

be considered identical crimes. 

For instance, a defendant accused of destroying documents he or she knew would 

be subpoenaed by a grand jury can be charged under 18 U.S.C. 1503, 1512, 1519, 

or 1520, all of which have different evidentiary standards, and which have maximum sentences ranging between 10 and 20 years. 

Accordingly, I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Goodlatte follows:] 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary 

Thank you, Chairman Sensenbrenner. I am very pleased to be here at the first 

hearing of the Over-Criminalization Task Force following its reauthorization. I particularly appreciate your leadership on the issue of criminal code reform. 

As we all heard last year, the U.S. Code currently contains an estimated 4,500 

federal crimes, and Congress is adding new crimes at a rapid rate—approximately 

500 per decade. The fact that this is only an estimate means that no one knows 

exactly how many provisions in the federal Code subject American citizens to criminal sanctions. The explosive growth of the Criminal Code is due in large part to 

what many have termed ‘‘legislation by accumulation,’’ which means that Congress 

has simply accumulated new offenses for two hundred years or so, with little examination or reformulation of existing offenses. This has resulted in serious, chronic 

overlaps in coverage and irrationalities among offense penalties, which create new 

possibilities for disparity in treatment and for double punishment for the same 

harm or evil. This sort of ‘‘legislation by accumulation,’’ or by anecdote, is undoubtedly contrary to Congressional intent, not to mention the fair administration of justice. 

As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I have a particular interest in ensuring 

that the provisions in the Criminal Code are carefully and thoughtfully drafted. 

Last year, the House passed legislation to ensure that the criminal prohibitions 

against cigarette smuggling apply to the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam 

and the Northern Mariana Islands just as they do in the rest of the country. Without this fix, cigarettes sold in those territories without evidence that taxes were paid 

would not fall within in the definition of ‘‘contraband cigarettes.’’ The House passed 

similar legislation last Congress, but it was not taken up by the Senate, so we had 

to pass it again this Congress. This legislation was necessary because something as 

simple as a general, uniform definition of the term ‘‘state’’ does not exist in title 18. 

This is an example of Congress having to go back and fix a problem it created by 

imprecise drafting. We should be able to be specific when drafting laws that affect 

Americans’ fundamental liberties. 

Additionally, many of the criminal offenses contained in Title 18 are not graded 

according to their relative severity. Distinguished scholars—including Professor 

Julie O’Sullivan of Georgetown University, who is with us today—have described 

this problem. For example, the statutory maximum penalty for violating certain sections of the Animal Welfare Act—five years—is the same as the penalty prescribed 

for female genital mutilation of girls under eighteen. The fact that these crimes are 

punished equally by the Criminal Code speaks volumes about the need for reform. 

The Judiciary Committee has an excellent track record when it comes to careful 

and precise drafting, particularly with respect to the quality of criminal intent requirements. However, the federal Criminal Code, over which this Committee maintains jurisdiction, still suffers from severe problems of redundancy, overlap, and a 

lack of clear, consistent definitions. Under my leadership, this Committee is dedicated to ensuring that the legislation we produce employs clear and defined terms, 

and clearly outlines the conduct that is prohibited. The American people deserve no 

less. 

I thank our distinguished panel of witnesses, and look forward to their testimony. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I will give abbreviated introductions of all 

of the witnesses. And without objection, the full text will be put in 

the record at this time. 
7 

[The information referred to follows:] 
8 
9 
10 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The first witness is Mr. Michael Volkov, 

who is the CEO of the Volkov Law Group, which has expertise in 

areas of compliance, internal investigation, and enforcement matters, and an alumnus of the staff of this Committee. 

Ms. Julie Rose O’Sullivan is the associate dean for the J.D. program at Georgetown Law School. She has written many articles 

and has the leading casebook on white-collar crime, and is a recognized expert in both Federal sentencing guidelines and white-collar 

criminal law. 

Mr. Roger Fairfax, Jr., is professor of law at G.W. University 

Law School, where he teaches and writes on criminal law and procedure, and criminal justice policy. 

And finally, Mr. John Cline practices in the Law Office of John 

Cline in San Francisco. His practice focuses on Federal criminal defense at trial and appellate levels. He has tried criminal cases nationwide, and argued before a number of Federal courts of appeals 

and the United States Supreme Court. 

I thank all of the witnesses for appearing. Without objection, 

your full statement will appear in the record. 

The Chair would request that witnesses confine their testimony 

to 5 minutes. You all have experience with red, yellow, and green 

lights. You know what they mean. 

Mr. Volkov, you are first. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL VOLKOV, CEO, 

THE VOLKOV LAW GROUP LLC 

Mr. VOLKOV. Chairman Sensenbrenner, Ranking Member Scott, 

Ranking Member Conyers, and other Task Force Members, thank 

you for the opportunity to appear and testify before the Task Force. 

First, let me say it is an honor to return to the Committee, where 

I worked on the staff for several years. I am very comfortable with 

addressing the Task Force Chair as Mr. Chairman. As a matter 

fact, he requires that, and I still do that, too. 

It is also an honor to return to the Committee to appear before 

Ranking Member Scott, with whom I worked for many years on important criminal justice issues, debated a lot of issues. 

And I am sure the Committee and you miss our colleague, Bobby 

Vassar, who contributed so much to the Committee’s work. 

My years on the Judiciary Committee staff were the highlight of 

my professional career, and I will always be grateful to all of you 

and to the Committee for the opportunity to serve the public. 

Now I welcome the opportunity to address the Task Force on the 

important issue of Federal criminal code reform. This is an issue 

that is near and dear to my heart. 

Mr. Chairman, you have led the charge on this issue by introducing over the last 4 years the Criminal Code Modernization and 

Simplification Act. Having worked as a staff member on this important legislation, I know the effort that is required to introduce this 

bill each year. It is a Herculean task. Your work represents an important bipartisan invitation and challenge to enact meaningful 

criminal code reform. 

I want to take a moment to commend your former staff director, 

Phil Kiko, and I am sure there is no objection to that, hopefully. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, so ordered. [Laughter.] 
11 

Mr. VOLKOV. And Legislative Counsel Doug Bellis—he just appeared—and Legislative Counsel Doug Bellis, who both devoted 

significant time to this effort, as well as your staff in the last three 

congressional sessions. 

We can all agree on one thing: The Federal criminal code, if left 

unchecked, will continue to resemble the United States Tax Code. 

That is not a good thing. In fact, it threatens any hope we have 

of equal justice. 

Each year, a new edition of the current United States Criminal 

Code with a new color, or at least portions of it, is delivered to lawyers, congressional staff, and practitioners. Each year, it accretes 

new crimes, resembling the old Yellow Pages, if anyone here remembers those days. 

I am reminded of one of my favorite scenes from a Marx brothers 

movie, ‘‘Duck Soup,’’ when Groucho Marx is the president of the 

mythical country Fredonia. He is given a report by one of his ministers, who asked Groucho if he understands the report. Groucho 

replies, ‘‘Of course, I understand the report. Why, even a 4-yearold child could understand this report.’’ Groucho looks down at that 

report, starts to read, and then says, ‘‘Run out and get me a 4-yearold child. I can not make head or tail of it.’’ The same can be said 

about our Federal criminal code. 

No one can make heads or tails of the code, except possibly—possibly—prosecutors, judges, and defense counsel. Our citizens have 

no idea the scope of Federal crimes, nor are they aware of the coverage of specific Federal crimes. 

The Federal criminal code is unusable, unwieldy, and a maze of 

Federal criminal offenses, few of which are drafted consistently and 

even fewer of which provide clarity to law-abiding citizens. 

The danger of the Federal criminal code is well known to the 

Task Force, as reflected in the title and the charter right here: 

‘‘Over-Criminalization.’’ 

The Federal criminal code gives Federal prosecutors even more 

power and discretion to exercise against defendants. It enables 

them to manipulate the criminal justice system to charge similarly 

situated defendants with a variety of crimes. 

Prosecutors can exercise this power without violating the double 

jeopardy clause of our Constitution. This is inconsistent with our 

commitment to equal justice. 

Our Federal criminal code needs to reflect three clear principles. 

First, it must be written clearly. Second, it must be concise with 

a minimal use of clear and defined terms. And third, it must be accessible. 

Right now, the Federal criminal code sits as a monstrosity that 

no one has the time or the inclination to tackle, much less understand. 

The issue of reform is much more serious than references in the 

criminal provisions to prevent improper use of ‘‘Smokey Bear,’’ 

‘‘Woody Owl,’’ or protecting the emblem of the Swiss Confederation. 

As it now stands, the code is littered with criminal offenses that 

are used in the criminal justice system to obtain desired results 

without regard to Congress’ intent. 

The Over-Criminalization Task Force is at the right place and at 

the right time to advance revision of the Federal criminal code. I 
12 

urge you, as a former Federal prosecutor and now a defense lawyer, and an alum of the staff here, to recommend that the Federal 

criminal code be reviewed and revised with a goal of providing clarity, applying consistent drafting principles, and reducing the number and reach of Federal crimes in order to protect our constitutional system of justice and respect federalism. 

First, let me just go over the principles that should guide any 

type of reform—and I appreciate the Chair’s hammering, and I will 

submit my statement, obviously, for the record. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Volkov follows:] 
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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. 

Ms. O’Sullivan? 

TESTIMONY OF JULIE ROSE O’SULLIVAN, PROFESSOR, 

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Scott, and the Task Force. I am honored to be invited to speak to 

you today about a topic about which I have written quite a bit. I 

feel a little bit like a weekend hacker advising the wizards on their 

defense. It strikes me as a little presumptuous for an academic to 

come and tell expert lawmakers how to revise a code. That said, 

you have invited me, so I am delighted to participate. 

Thus far, those of us who have written in this field have witnessed a remarkable phenomenon in Washington; that is, the 

ACLU sitting cheek by jowl with the federalists and Cato and everybody else. Concerned groups on the left and the right agree that 

the code is broken, and it has to be fixed. 

I do not think that there is real question about that any longer. 

The question is what is to be done. 

I would imagine that this Kumbaya moment is going to be fleeting. I assume it will break down fairly quickly, once we start getting into the specifics of code revision, because the parties that are 

coming together now actually have very different underlying values. 

So for example, the ACLU is principally concerned, as I understand it, with over-incarceration, racial equity, juvenile justice, and 

overly harsh drug sentencing. By contrast, I think a lot of the conservative groups who have made their voices heard are much more 

concerned with federalism issues, with the overabundance and 

vagueness of white-collar offenses, and with deficiencies in mens 

rea that permeate the code. 

What does this mean? Two things. First, once the actual process 

of code reform begins, we are going to see a splintering, and the 

politics are going to become much more contentious. And second, 

in light of that, although it is arguable, it may be best to take the 

entire project on at once, so that those with different priorities will 

be forced to negotiate, horse trade, compromise, with the result 

that we actually get something done. 

Prior efforts to reform the code ended in frustration, but they 

eventually bore fruit. I believe that the U.S. Sentencing Commission was created in part because one could not fix the code in the 

front end—that is, fix the actual code—so the decision was made 

to rationalize the back end, rationalize the punishment. 

The issues surrounding sentencing are as contentious, if not 

more contentious, than formulating a criminal norm. But the Sentencing Commission was very successful in appearing bipartisan 

and expert. As part of its processes, it regularly called in experts 

and solicited the views of all stakeholders, and it still does. 

Many people are unhappy with the guidelines, but that is the nature of the enterprise. We are not going to make everybody happy. 

For present purposes, what is really important is that the commission got the job done, that Congress, at least at that point, was unable to do. And it got the job done in a credible and expert fashion. 
24 

With this in mind, I urge lawmakers to create a permanent, expert, bipartisan body, perhaps this one, whose charge it is to overhaul and continuously respond to emerging issues and problems 

that percolate up from the courts. This type of body is essential to 

ensure a devotion to this difficult task that otherwise may well ebb 

and flow with political seasons, the tenure of committed Members 

of Congress, and the like. 

It would also provide the means by which consultation with all 

stakeholders, and many experts could actually be institutionalized. 

And this kind of consultation strikes me as absolutely essential to 

the kind of credibility and viability of a revised code. 

It would also ensure uniform drafting and consistent use of mens 

rea terms, and it would allow Congress to remedy much more 

promptly problems emerging in the application of the statute. 

For example, this expert body no doubt would have advised Congress to respond sooner to problems with the honest services doctrine than the 20 years it took the Supreme Court to decide that 

all the people who—not all, but many of the people who went to 

jail for 20 years did not, in fact, commit a crime. 

Obviously, how such a body is structured, financed, to whom it 

reports, the weight given its work product, and myriad other 

issues, would have to be resolved consistent with constitutional and 

practical constraints. But I think that code reform may well continue to be just a fond dream without such a permanent commitment to the code. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. O’Sullivan follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Julie Rose O’Sullivan, Professor, 

Georgetown University Law Center 

For my written statement, which is an article entitled ‘‘The Federal Criminal 

‘Code’ Is a Disgrace: Obstruction Statutes as Case Study,’’ published in the Journal 

of Criminal Law and Criminology in 2006, please go to the following link: 

http://www.federalwhitecollarcrime.org/pdf/criminal—Law—and— 

Criminilogy.pdf 

Additional thoughts can be found in: 

Julie Rose O’Sullivan, The Federal Criminal ‘‘Code’’: Return of Overfederalization, 

37 Harv.J.Law & Public Policy 57 (2014). 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Fairfax? 

TESTIMONY OF ROGER A. FAIRFAX, JR., 

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL 

Mr. FAIRFAX. Chairman Sensenbrenner, Ranking Member Scott, 

and Members of the Task Force, I thank you for the kind invitation 

to participate in this hearing on criminal code reform. And at the 

outset, I would like to voice my appreciation for the hard work and 

dedication of this Task Force, the Members of which are exhibiting 

exactly the kind of leadership and bipartisan cooperation necessary 

for the improvement of our Nation’s criminal justice system. 

I come to this topic as a former Federal prosecutor who has handled cases brought under the Federal criminal code, and as an at-
25 

torney who has defended individuals and corporations charged 

under statutes in the code, and as a legal scholar who has dedicated much of his work to the improvement of our Nation’s laws 

and the justice system. 

And Members of this Task Force have been instrumental in exposing and responding to the deficiencies of the Federal criminal 

code. Of course, Chairman Sensenbrenner has introduced the 

Criminal Code Modernization and Simplification Act. In addition, 

Mr. Scott, when he was Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, 

Terrorism, and Homeland Security, held hearings soliciting views 

and concerns regarding the state of the Federal criminal code. 

Many well-respected commentators have criticized the Federal 

criminal code for its excessive length, lack of organization, redundant provisions, and outdated offenses. There also have been calls 

for certain substantive changes to the code, such as the bolstering 

of mens rea requirements, the decriminalization of some regulatory 

and other offenses, and the reduction in the number of mandatory 

minimum sentences. Many of these and other critiques are quite 

persuasive, and there is no doubt that most observers would agree 

that the Federal criminal code is in need of reform. 

However, before we contemplate how Congress might best 

streamline, reorganize, refine, and modernize the Federal criminal 

code, it is essential to draw lessons from past efforts. 

The seeds of serious modern-day efforts at comprehensive code 

reform, Federal code reform, were sown in the 1950’s and early 

1960’s by the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code, which 

with its technical precision, elegant organization and draftsmanship, and its attention to principles of culpability and mens rea, 

spurred many States to undertake significant revisions of their 

criminal codes. 

With the Model Penal Code and President Johnson’s 1965 crime 

commission as the backdrop, Congress established in 1966 the National Commission on the Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, commonly known as the Brown commission. 

The 1971 final report of the Brown commission proposed a new 

Federal criminal code. This proposed code included a general part 

that set out definitions, defenses, principles for liability, and general standards for the exercise of Federal criminal jurisdiction. 

The proposed code also featured a special part containing a comprehensive collection of all the Federal felony offenses. 

Despite the Brown commission’s tremendous efforts over 4 years, 

however, the proposed comprehensive Federal criminal code never 

was enacted into law, although there were repeated attempts in 

the House and the Senate over a period of almost 12 years. 

So it may be time to revisit Federal criminal code reform. And 

to be sure, many of the challenges that face Congress after the 

Brown commission remain. Nevertheless, I believe that we do have 

a meaningful opportunity for reform, because today, a strong bipartisan consensus has been developing around the idea that we 

should be smart on crime. 

And given the current receptivity to evidence-based innovation in 

criminal justice policy, the time may be ripe for reconsideration of 

Federal criminal code reform. 
26 

I do have a number of suggestions for consideration, if Congress 

were to contemplate embarking on an effort to revise the Federal 

criminal code. 

The first is the establishment of a new broadly representative 

commission, just much like the Brown commission, to draft Federal 

criminal code reform legislation or to work with existing legislation, 

like Chairman Sensenbrenner’s bill. 

The second is a partnership with established and respected law 

reform entities, such as the American Law Institute or the ABA 

Criminal Justice Section, and the utilization of the technical assistance of members of the legal academy and experts in criminal justice policy community. 

And third, the establishment of a permanent, professionally 

staffed criminal law revision commission in Congress that can assist Members and Committees with the technical analysis regarding the question of whether a contemplated new criminal law or 

penalty is actually needed, and also the design and drafting of 

criminal statutes so that they are well constructed and fit appropriately within the larger criminal code. 

I believe that these ideas, derived from the work of individuals 

who have been involved in criminal code reform efforts for decades, 

are worthy of consideration. And if the Members have questions 

later, I will be happy to elaborate on any or all of these ideas and 

discuss how criminal code reform might fit into the larger bipartisan criminal justice reform agenda, responsive to concerns about 

over-criminalization. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fairfax follows:] 
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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Fairfax. 

Mr. Cline? 

TESTIMONY OF JOHN D. CLINE, ESQUIRE, 

LAW OFFICE OF JOHN D. CLINE 

Mr. CLINE. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Scott, and Members 

of the Task Force, thank you for the opportunity to share my views 

as a criminal defense lawyer. 

A comprehensive revision of the Federal criminal code should 

focus on five main points: reducing the number of Federal crimes, 

ensuring that the revised code strikes a proper balance between 

Federal and State law enforcement, clearly defining the appropriate levels of mens rea, establishing uniform rules of construction, and revising the overly harsh punishment system. I will take 

those in turn. 

First, reducing the number of Federal offenses. The list of Federal crimes has grown from a handful in the Crimes Act of 1790 

to thousands today. This growth has occurred in part because the 

country has become more complex, but it also occurs because every 

time there is a national crisis, the reaction is to enact new Federal 

crimes. The result is a morass of overlapping statutes. 

For example, there are more than two dozen different false statements statutes in Chapter 47 of Title 18. There are seven different 

fraud statutes in Chapter 63 of Title 18. And I count 19 different 

obstruction offenses in Chapter 73 of Title 18. 

This proliferation of Federal offenses has two main practical consequences, from my perspective. First of all, the sheer number of 

crimes creates a notice problem. Justice Holmes declared that ‘‘fair 

warning should be given to the world, in language that the common world will understand,’’ talking about notice of crimes. But 

with the statutory scheme that now exists, fair warning is a fiction. 

Second, the existence of multiple Federal statutes that address 

the same conduct encourages Federal prosecutors to overcharge. 

Some prosecutors take advantage of overlapping offenses to charge 

the same course of conduct in multiple counts under multiple statutes. The result is often juror compromise. Jurors who can not 

agree unanimously on guilt or innocence decide to split the baby, 

to convict on some and to acquit on others, thinking that they are 

giving the defendant a break by doing that. But they can not be 

told, but the truth is, that a conviction on one count in Federal 

court is typically as bad as a conviction on all counts. 

So reducing the number of Federal crimes will reduce overcharging. It will reduce juror compromise. And it will help ensure 

fairness to defendants. 

Revising the Federal criminal code affords the opportunity to address other troublesome areas as well. I will just touch briefly on 

one of those, which is conspiracy. 

Justice Jackson warned about the elastic, sprawling, and pervasive conspiracy offense. The offense of conspiracy to defraud the 

United States is especially amorphous. A revision of the code affords an opportunity to think carefully about conspiracy, and to 

focus more clearly on who truly deserves to be caught up in its net. 

The second principle is restoring the Federal and State ballots. 

Our Federalist system initially contemplated that the States would 
42 

have the primary role in law enforcement. Over the last 50 years, 

however, Federal criminal jurisdiction has exploded to the point 

that almost any culpable conduct can be brought within the Federal ambit. 

As a result, just to cite some examples from my own practice, we 

see vote buying in local elections charged us Federal RICO offenses. We see nondisclosure under State campaign finance laws 

charged as mail fraud or wire fraud. And we see violation of local 

anti-patronage laws being charged as Federal honest services 

fraud. And of course, there are drug laws where the gap between 

Federal enforcement and State enforcement seems to grow. 

Reforming mens rea, I will just touch on one area there, which 

is willful blindness. There is a Federal doctrine of willful blindness, 

which is a judge-made notion that allows the awareness of a high 

probability of a fact, and a deliberate effort to avoid knowledge, to 

substitute for actual knowledge, which is the element that Congress has provided. That is a dangerous provision for defendants, 

because it weakens the mens rea requirement, which is often the 

only element that is disputed in a Federal criminal case. Revising 

the Federal criminal code affords an opportunity to take a look at 

willful blindness and make a reasoned decision as to whether it 

should be used or not. 

The fourth area is uniform rules of construction. I will touch on 

one, the rule of lenity. Now it is applied in sort of a haphazard, ad 

hoc way by courts. A revision of the Federal criminal code affords 

an opportunity to make that a uniform rule of construction, so that 

doubts about the meaning of a Federal criminal statute are uniformly resolved in favor of the defendant. That is important to fair 

notice. It is important to fairness, generally. 

And finally, revision of the code affords an opportunity to fix 

some of the harsh punishment provisions now, especially mandatory minimums, that have resulted in an enormous and unnecessarily large Federal prison population. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cline follows:] 
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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Cline. 

The Chair will now recognize Members under the 5-minute rule, 

and I will start by recognizing myself. 

One of my goals in this effort is to try to avoid the traps of having an omnibus revision of the criminal code becoming a debate on 

numerous criminal justice policies, from the death penalty to mandatory minimums to disparate sentences and the like. So in order 

not to repeat the record of failure of past attempts to revise the 

criminal code over almost 50 years, I am trying to have at least the 

first attempt at this be policy neutral. 

I would like each of the four witnesses to give us some advice on 

how to try to keep it policy neutral, because if it is not, I think this 

effort will go down in flames, just like the previous ones. 

Mr. VOLKOV. Thank you, Chairman Sensenbrenner. 

I see this as the most important principle, which is to stay policy 

neutral, because there are so many issues that have to be addressed with regard to drafting, with regard to inconsistencies, 

with regard to penalties, that we need to get a foundation document that is almost like the beginning of building a house that is 

clear and is done in the right way, with technically making the 

right choices, and consistency. 

From that point, everybody can then debate the issues. What is 

the right penalty? Should we have a death penalty? 

But we first need a document that make sense. And the way to 

do that, and I share the recommendation of some type of body. And 

you started the anti-trust modernization commission back in 2006, 

when we did the Department of Justice reauthorization bill. That 

would be some model that could work for rewriting the code in a 

policy-neutral basis. Just make that their charge and get a group 

of people together who are experts in the field to do that. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Ms. O’Sullivan? 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. Thank you for an excellent and challenging 

question. 

What I would suggest is that you begin with what I think Roger 

mentioned as the general part, which is addressing the sort of default rules for statutory construction, maybe legislating the rule of 

lenity. 

But also providing default provisions for mens rea, definitions of 

mens rea, definitions of when omissions are actionable or not actionable. So you could deal with a lot of the endemic problems of 

the code by articulating a general part, much like the ALI’s Model 

Penal Code, that would be sort of neutral, because there would be 

no context. It applies to drug cases; it applies to white-collar cases, 

right? So you would be forced, people would be forced to deal with 

these issues in the abstract on a criminal law basis rather than a 

political or public policy basis. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. 

Mr. Fairfax? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. I agree with both suggestions, Mr. Chairman. I 

would really urge the idea of having a separate entity, a body with 

broad representation, perhaps undertake a first cut at a lot of these 

issues. I think it is much better to have things that perhaps do not 

even seem like they are controversial in the first instance, but that 

later turn out to be somewhat controversial taken up by a commis-
61 

sion or by a group in the first instance, rather than for the first 

time in the course of legislative debate. I also agree with Mr. 

Volkov. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. 

Mr. Cline? 

Mr. CLINE. Mr. Chairman, I think true policy neutrality is hard 

to obtain. I think in almost any judgment, for example, about mens 

rea, there are policy judgments that need to be made. 

I think the best way to achieve a politically acceptable result is 

to have the sort of commission that Mr. Fairfax talked about. I am 

on the ABA Criminal Justice Standards Committee. We have prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, stakeholders, who meet and try to 

agree on standards. I think that approach is probably the best way 

to get to a result that could actually be enacted into legislation. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott? 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Fairfax, you mentioned a couple times the idea of being 

smart on crime. Compared to what we are doing on drug abuse, 

what would be a smarter approach? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. Well, you know, it is interesting. A lot of innovation 

is taking place right now in the States. And I have been involved 

with the American Bar Association Criminal Justice and State Policy Implementation Project. And the goal of that project is to show 

States how they can enhance public safety, reduce crime and recidivism, enhance justice and fairness, and save the taxpayer dollars, 

which is a win-win-win across the board. 

And States that have been successful in working in this area 

have looked at changes to their sentencing policies in the same way 

that legislation that I know you have cosponsored in the Smarter 

Sentencing Act. And then also with regard to reentry of ex-offenders, Michigan, for example, through their prisoner reentry initiative, has slashed their budget for corrections and has reduced the 

overall number of prison beds that they need. 

So I think there are lots of great ideas in the States, and I am 

starting to see them come up to the Federal level. 

Mr. SCOTT. There have been several mentions of mandatory 

minimums. How do mandatory minimums comply with a smart-oncrime approach? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. Well, I think that the legislative trends we are seeing right here in the Congress, again with the Smarter Sentencing 

Act, is really starting to take that question head-on. 

I was actually very heartened a couple weeks ago. I know that 

you, Mr. Scott, were present at a roundtable at which Attorney 

General Eric Holder, Senator Mike Lee, Senator Rand Paul, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, participated in a discussion about these 

very issues, mandatory minimum sentences. And all of the aforementioned individuals have either cosponsored legislation or supported a new approach to mandatory minimums. And I think that 

that is the trend that we are seeing. 

Mr. SCOTT. Ms. O’Sullivan, did you want to comment on that, 

and also on the value of having all the criminal code in one place, 

what the value of that would be? 
62 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. I would be delighted to. 

I think mandatory minimums are wasteful and unjust. They do 

not permit the kind of even rough estimate of culpability that is 

necessary to a fair justice system. And I think that they also target 

certain populations. 

In any case, the second part of your question was? 

Mr. SCOTT. Putting all the—— 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. What benefits there are. 

It is not just tidiness—right?—that argues for a tight and discrete code. I can tell you that, as a former prosecutor, it is almost 

impossible to figure out the obstruction chapter. It is overlapping. 

It is confusing. It makes no sense. 

It also, for example, you can charge the same crime under a 20- 

year count or a 10-year count or a 5-year count, which gives prosecutors a lot of power that can be used for good or ill. 

And so I think that it is a much more efficient—you do not have 

prosecutors making mistakes. You do not have things being cleaned 

up on appeal. Everybody knows what the rules are. You have notice. And then are able, once you have this code, to make thoughtful judgments about relative culpability. 

So, for example, in my article I talk about these two statutes. 

One statute is fleeing from an INS checkpoint. The other statute 

outlaws female genital mutilation. They are both 5-year counts. 

That makes no sense. But you do not know that until you have a 

code that you are able to sit back, look at the sections, and say, 

how culpable is this? 

So, for example, obstructing a judicial proceeding is a 10-year 

count. Did you know that obstructing a congressional investigation 

is only 5 years? I do not know why there is a disparity. [Laughter.] 

Mr. SCOTT. I want to get in one more question. 

Mr. Volkov, I wanted to give you an opportunity to go through 

your principles that you did not have an opportunity to do. 

Mr. VOLKOV. Actually, that was the first point I wanted to make. 

With regard to the principles, and I know I am preaching to the 

choir here, but there has to be a single Committee in the Congress 

that supervises, reviews, and legislates with regard to criminal offenses. 

Right now, we have other Committees that put criminal offenses 

into the code, and it is an absolute disaster. And we had to fight 

that on the staff all the time. And right now, we need to get all 

of the criminal offenses that are all throughout the code, and bring 

them into Title 18, and let the Judiciary Committee supervise it 

and monitor it. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair of the full Committee, the gentleman from Virginia, 

Mr. Goodlatte. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Volkov, I like the way you think about that, and I have a 

pretty good idea which Committee should have that responsibility 

for all aspects of the criminal code. [Laughter.] 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I would like to ask all of you to talk a little bit 

about drawing the line between where something should be civil 

and regulatory, and where should it be a criminal offense. 
63 

Before we get into figuring out what kind of consistency we can 

have with regard to mens rea, I think we also need to think about 

what kind of consistency we need to have or can have, if possible, 

between what things should be civil and regulatory, and what 

things should be criminal offenses. 

So I will start with you, Mr. Volkov, and we will go right across. 

You can tell me how to draw that line. 

Mr. VOLKOV. I think that goes right to the work that you have 

been doing up to this point, that the Task Force has been doing, 

which is we get to criminal offenses versus civil offenses based on 

the impact or the action, the conduct or the failure to act, and the 

requisite intent. That is how we do it. 

We do not say that, for example, something that you have no responsibility for but occurred on your watch, or you had nothing to 

do with it, that you should be criminally punished for it. There are 

civil obligations that can come up in that context, if you have a 

duty to act. 

But before we make something criminal, there has to be an important part of conduct that we are trying to protect and prevent; 

and number two, that there is a culpable state of mind. And you 

always have to be consistent with that. 

And what has happened, as you all know from all of your work 

up to now, is that issue has been diluted. And it has been diluted 

down to such a point that Congress does need to act in some respects to fix the intent issue. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Ms. O’Sullivan? 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. I very much agree with Mr. Volkov’s comments. 

You would have to look at the harm, culpability, and the mens rea. 

I have to say this is a particularly important question in the regulatory sphere. As you know, Congress very frequently delegates 

the authority to formulate regulations to an agency and then in advance provides that any knowing violation of the future regulation 

constitutes a crime. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. So we are creating a crime without knowing 

what crime we are creating. 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. Exactly. We do not know what the content yet 

is. 

But more seriously, I do not think anybody is going to count the 

number of criminalized regulatory offenses. I think at last count 

there were 300,000. That strikes me as crazy. 

Also, the courts have interpreted ‘‘knowingly violated’’ to mean 

know that you are doing the conduct that violates the provision, 

not that you knowingly violated the law, but that you knowingly 

shipped sulfuric acid without the right label on it. People can go 

to jail. That is a felony offense. 

That is a problem, and that language is used, and that Supreme 

Court interpretation of that language, is used consistently across 

all of these regulatory offenses. So that persons who are mixing 

two types of turpentine, or not making scaffolding in compliance 

with OSHA regulations, could actually go to jail. 

Now, we know they are not all going to do that. We do not have 

the resources to pursue all those people. But the problem is, the 

prosecutors—and I was one, so I trust them, for the most part— 
64 

but they get to pick and choose. And you obviously have potential 

there for arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. You have almost guaranteed it. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Fairfax? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. I do not have much else to add, other than to say 

that this actually connects to the initial point, which is what body, 

perhaps even within Congress, should have responsibility for implementing, for drafting, and passing criminal laws. Whether it is 

an exclusive jurisdiction arrangement or referral arrangement, as 

was discussed in the Heritage and NACDL ‘‘Without Intent’’ policy 

paper, or whether it is a criminal law revision commission within 

Congress, as was suggested, I think those types of solutions can 

help to address that problem. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Mr. Cline? 

Mr. CLINE. I think part of the problem, part of the reason we are 

here, is that whenever there is a crisis, the first reaction is to enact 

new crimes to address problems. That is what has led to all the 

overlapping crimes that we have, at least in part. 

I think the analysis should work the other way. I think the first 

question should be, is an administrative or civil film civil penalty 

provision, something along those lines, sufficient to deal with the 

problem? And only if it is not, then proceed to look to criminal legislation. 

I think the analysis is on its head right now. It needs to be reversed. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Cline. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, the Chairman emeritus of the Committee. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is one of the more important discussions we have been having on this Task Force, and I commend the Chairman for inviting 

these witnesses that are here. And I hope that I can work with him 

on his legislation, which to me presents a few problems that we 

will get into at the appropriate time. 

Let me say that, Professor O’Sullivan, and anyone else can join 

in afterward, you talked about creating a standing commission or 

task force to reform the criminal code all at once, so that we can 

begin this work. And I see that as an enormous challenge in the 

legislative system in our country. 

Might you and others comment about who might be, what kind 

of person would be on this commission? 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. Yes. Thank you for the question. 

One concern is constitutional. Obviously, the creation of the Sentencing Commission sparked a great deal of litigation about whether, constitutionally, you can vest the power to create sentencing in 

an independent agency. So I am very aware that the Committee 

would have to confront how much you could actually delegate, and 

the like. 

I think that you would have to have a situation much like the 

commission, where you have judges, you have practitioners, and 

here, obviously, you would have to have Members of Congress who 

participate. 
65 

I would see it as a fairly broad ranging group with a variety of 

experience and expertise. 

Mr. VOLKOV. Could I comment? 

I actually do not see the commission as being that broad. I clearly would not recommend going toward another Sentencing Commission, because we have a commission which is dealing with nonbinding type of guidelines these days, and I do not think that there 

is any reason to go to that. 

I do think, though, an expert group of practitioners, defense 

counsel, judges, prosecutors, sitting in a room and saying—the last 

time the code was reviewed, Mr. Gainer put one woman in a room 

and had her go through every page until she was finished. Six 

months later, she came out with, ‘‘Here is everything that I found,’’ 

in the 1980’s. 

We need a group of practitioners, just put us in a room and say 

get the job done. No elaborate commissions. Not a lot of money. 

And just get a group of people and do the work. 

Mr. CONYERS. Interesting. 

Anyone else want to comment? Yes, sir? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. So I would say, I actually think that the balance 

of representation we saw on the Brown commission was relatively 

well thought out. I would say that there would need to be more 

representation. I agree with Mr. Volkov that there would need to 

be more representation from the practitioner community, and particularly from career and political folks at DOJ, because what happened in the aftermath of the Brown commission is that there was 

not buy-in from the executive branch, and that produced an executive bill. And I think that the goal is, particularly if you want to 

pass this in the lifespan of one Congress, is to have one bill from 

the outset. And I think getting the engagement and the buy-in of 

all stakeholders early on is essential. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much. 

Let me ask, Attorney Cline, do you have any thoughts about how 

prosecutors overcharge and the consequences of such a practice, 

even when a jury decides to convict only on a few counts? 

Mr. CLINE. I do. Thank you for asking that question. 

It is a real problem. I understand why prosecutors want to do it. 

They are advocates, and they want to win their case. But what 

happens is, the same course of conduct is charged in a whole series 

of counts. Jurors are not told the consequences of a partial conviction. They think they are giving the defendant a break, or maybe 

splitting the loaf by convicting on some and acquitting on others. 

But under the sentencing guidelines, and under the sentencing 

practices, generally, a conviction on one count is really no different 

than a conviction on every count. So the defense lawyer has to 

pitch a no-hitter, in essence, if he wants to win the case. 

Jurors do not know that, and the result is compromised verdicts 

that pose real problems. 

Let me give you an example of a prosecuting agency that does 

it in what I would say is the right way. The Antitrust Division, 

when they bring a price-fixing case, a Sherman Act case, they typically charge one count—just one count. And so the jury has an up 

or down decision, guilty or not guilty. 
66 

That is the fair way to do it. But the multiplication of offenses 

now makes it very rare that that occurs outside the antitrust context. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Bachus. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

Professor O’Sullivan, you had talked about some of us focus on 

one thing, others focus on other things. I think that is true. 

I will tell you, though, that the harsh sentences, I think there is 

general agreement that some of the longer sentences are actually 

not working. They are probably causing harm. They are almost institutionalizing or causing young people to become criminals, and 

our system is failing for it. 

I think some of the hard questions are plea-bargaining. I have 

gone back and I have talked to defense attorneys. I have talked to 

prosecutors. Prosecutors say to me, and I used to be an assistant 

attorney general, we have to plea-bargain, and if you take this 

away from us, we are not going to be able to get people to plea. 

But they are pleading for the wrong reasons. They are pleading 

not because they think they are guilty, a lot of times, but because 

if they plead, it is just 6 months and a misdemeanor, sometimes. 

If they try the case, it can be 5 years or 10 years imprisonment. 

And Mr. Cline, as he said, there are actually examples of people 

who are offered 6 months or a year and no time served who refuse 

to plead because they really thought they were innocent, and were 

indicted on 15 counts, were found innocent on 14 of those with the 

offer out there of a year and a day if they pled, and went to jail 

for 5 years. 

And the jury, there was a case in Birmingham I am aware of, 

because it was widely reported, where that the jury came out and 

congratulated the defendant’s family. Yet they convicted him on 

one count and he went to jail for 5 years. And some of the jury said 

we had no idea here. We thought that was one of the more minor 

charges. 

We are talking about discretion, how much discretion to give 

judges, everything from complete to no discretion. No discretion 

has been a failure. I think it is how far do we leave it until we obtain it. 

But let me emphasize something else. There is also a problem 

that we have as Members of Congress, and we have dealt with this 

on the civil and criminal side, we pass a law and then the regulators or the agencies decide that they are going to make it a crime. 

We pass a statute, and I am not even sure we have that realization. 

I was Chairman of Financial Services. We passed things and suddenly read they are using those things in the criminal courts. We 

never even imagined that we were passing a criminal law. 

So I think you have to take some discretion away from the agencies, like OSHA, EPA. 

Finally, let me say this, one of the most complex things, and I 

am a Congressman from Birmingham, Alabama, so I feel like I am 

handling a stick of dynamite, it is obvious when you look at the 
67 

numbers, the high incarceration rate for young Blacks. It is kind 

of difficult for us to talk about. 

That is a very complex issue, and I do not believe there is an intention with 99 percent of prosecutors and judges to be racially motivated. I really do not. I think with the cocaine, crack, that obviously resulted in a terrible problem. 

But if you listed the reasons, there would probably be 50 reasons 

why incarceration is higher among young Blacks, even the presence 

of police. I can drive through my suburban community and not see 

a police car. There is no police presence. You can drive through 

some areas, and there is a police car every two blocks, just a high 

concentration of police officers. The crime, the violent crime in 

those communities, the higher evidence of that. 

So I do not know how we address that. I know some of it I think 

is we approach it not as a criminal matter, but more as an educational matter, or divert some of these cases. 

But that is something we have to look at. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Bass? 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you for your testimony today. 

It seems like the panel kind of agrees that the way we should 

go about this is an outside commission, although I think you were 

describing a committee inside as well as outside. 

Mr. VOLKOV. No, I actually share the same—whether you want 

to call it a commission or whatever, we need to have all of the practitioners in the room, and their charge is to come up with a document that makes sense, instead of having overlapping crimes, enabling stacking by prosecutors, all of that. We need to have one rational document to work from. 

Ms. BASS. I guess you were saying, then, on the Judiciary Committee, that when other Committees pass laws, they should all 

come through here. 

Mr. VOLKOV. Right. And that is probably one of the most important recommendations I can make, because as a staff member here, 

we had to go and fight other Committees that were legislating 

crimes, and they really did not know what they were doing. In this 

Committee is a repository of knowledge, history, expertise, that 

every criminal offense that is enacted in this country should be reviewed by the Judiciary Committee, enacted, and you can have successive referrals if they want to look at it, too. But we all spent too 

much time watching the territory to make sure that things were 

not done stupidly by other Committees, to be honest with you. 

Ms. BASS. Are you suggesting Members of Congress did not know 

what they were doing? [Laughter.] 

Mr. VOLKOV. I am telling you—— 

Ms. BASS. You do not need to respond to that. 

Mr. VOLKOV. Ms. Bass, we were brought into situations where a 

Committee would bring to the floor, okay, all of a sudden on the 

floor of the House were 25 criminal offenses being added to the 

criminal code in different statutes. Mr. Vassar and I had to run immediately to the parliamentarian and say, what is going on, go to 

the Committee, argue with the Committee, and tell that Committee 

to remove the amendment from the floor. 
68 

Ms. BASS. Okay. Let me ask about a couple situations. 

I really appreciate, Ms. O’Sullivan, the way you were describing 

the differences in values and goals coming from two different directions, and I would certainly want to associate myself with the side 

that is concerned about over-incarceration, especially with the drug 

laws, especially now, in light of drug laws changing within the 

States. So when it comes to purpose of mind, I just want to ask 

in terms of directionthat the Committee was going with the draft, 

how do you think a situation would be viewed—this is hypothetical, 

although there were a lot of cases, in particular with women who 

were involved with men, examples of females being a blind mule, 

not knowing that they were being asked to transport drugs. I do 

not know if that falls into what you were saying, in terms of being 

blind, I believe, is the way you described it. 

Or a female who might be stuck in an abusive relationship. 

There are drugs in the house. The house is raided, and she is 

caught up as well. 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. That is a difficult thing to legislate. That 

strikes me as something that is quintessentially a prosecutorial 

judgment, but it is one that has to be an educated judgment. I am 

not sure that the mule problem is restricted to women, although 

certainly a big issue. 

I actually had a defendant who was 18. He took a gym bag from 

point A to point B. He had no idea—he probably knew it had drugs 

in it. He did not know what type. He did not know how much. He 

got five bucks for it. And he was looking at 10 years. 

One thing you could do in the drug area is require proof, provide 

gradations of offenses by amount and type, and require the person 

to know what type of drug they are carrying and approximate 

quantities. Right now, people get sentenced for whatever type or 

quantity actually exists, and they do not have to know how much. 

But it is relevant to culpability. 

May I just add one thing to what Mr. Volkov said? 

Ms. BASS. Sure. 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. As far as the commission, I think this Committee is really busy. I assume that you are already fully tasked. 

So that is one of the reasons I propose—I did not necessarily mean 

a totally independent committee, more of a commission that is sort 

of advisory to you all. 

So, for example, if the SEC issues regulations, before you vote to 

criminalize them, that commission would review them, so you do 

not have to review all that stuff, and advise you on what they 

think is appropriate. 

It would be helping this group do what they needed to do, because what we are all proposing that you do is probably the work 

of 20 people forever. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gohmert? 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank each of 

you for being here and for your insights. 

Mandatory minimums have been, obviously, quite controversial 

over the years. When I was a judge, a district judge, handling State 

felonies, I had absolutely no problem with being given a wide range 

of punishment and let me have the discretion to consider all of the 
69 

factors and set a punishment within that range. But I get the impression that if we completely eliminate mandatory minimums, 

that means the range will always be from no punishment whatsoever to whatever cap we want to put on them. 

Are any of you advocating that for everything that Congress 

makes a crime, there should be the possibility of absolutely no punishment whatsoever? Or is it okay to have a range and give judges 

that discretion? 

Mr. CLINE. I will be glad to start. I think mandatory minimums 

are a bad idea, pretty much across the board. 

Mr. GOHMERT. My question was about having a range, because 

when we talk about mandatory minimums, that may completely 

eliminate having anything as a bottom for a range. So my question 

is—so we do not get into, ‘‘Well, what does he really mean by mandatory minimums?’’—do you have a problem with a range being set 

by Congress and giving the judge discretion within that range, or 

is it your adamant contention that there should never be a crime 

which the least punishment is not nothing, no punishment whatsoever? You want that as a possibility in every single crime, is that 

correct? 

Mr. CLINE. I think it is. And I say that—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. So every State that has ranges of punishment, 

like in Texas, third degree, 2 to 10; second degree, 2 to 20; first degree, 5 to 99 years or life. Texas is completely wrong in having that 

minimum of 2 or 5 years? That is your contention? 

Mr. CLINE. Well, I hesitate to say that Texas is wrong about anything. I am a Texas law graduate. [Laughter.] 

But let me say this, I think that Federal judges in the pre-guidelines era, and since the guidelines became advisory, have demonstrated that they have the ability to impose rational and fair 

sentences without mandatory minimums. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Absolutely. Most of them do. Most of them do. 

Mr. CLINE. I disagree with plenty of sentences, but most Federal 

sentences do not carry mandatory minimums, and you do not see 

very many serious offenders getting away with—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Yes, but you get into the range, and I remember 

when the Sentencing Commission came in, Federal judges were absolutely livid that their discretion was being hampered like that. 

And then I was shocked 10 years later to find many of them liked 

not having to make the tough calls, and it narrowed their decisions 

and made sentencing so much easier. I was shocked. 

Mr. CLINE. I think where the guidelines stand now, which is advisory, a factor to be considered, but not mandatory, I think Federal judges, I am guessing, find those to be of real value. 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. May I add something? 

Mr. GOHMERT. Yes. 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. I am a fan of mandatory guidelines. I actually 

wrote probably the only article defending the guidelines. I do not 

think judges are born with some wisdom that the rest of us do not 

possess. And I think that the evidence of racial and gender and 

other really unacceptable disparities that existed prior to the guidelines really were shocking. And actually, if you look at the statistics since the guidelines have become advisory—— 
70 

Mr. GOHMERT. My time is about to expire, and I want to ask one 

other thing very quickly. 

With regard to regulations, I appreciate what you say. I ca not 

think of a regulation that I think we ought to make a crime without Congress ever considering it. Don’t you think there should be 

no regulation ever being a crime without Congress actually voting 

to make it a crime? Does anybody disagree? 

Mr. VOLKOV. I agree. 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. I agree. 

Mr. GOHMERT. And if we make it a requirement that any bill 

that has a criminal penalty has to come through Judiciary, I think 

that would help a lot. A bipartisan problem has been both sides of 

the aisle, when we want to show we are really tough on something, 

then throw a criminal penalty. And it has resulted in vast injustice. 

And I appreciate all of you bringing that forward. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, now we have found where there is 

policy agreement, so let’s keep on with this roll. 

The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cohen? 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do thank you for putting this together. 

I do not necessarily agree with the concept that we could not 

agree, and I may be wrong. Most of you all have been here a lot 

longer than me. But I think what the ACLU is interested in, and 

what I think what maybe Professor O’Sullivan said Republicans 

are looking at, that we could all agree on it, that there is a lot of 

white-collar crime that should not necessarily penalized as it is, 

and there are a bunch of people being put away for drugs that 

should not be either. 

And we all value liberty. That is one thing we come together on. 

And taking someone’s liberty is a serious offense, and it is a costly 

offense, $30,000 a year. 

So I think we could work together on the policy. 

Professor Fairfax, you are familiar with the controlled substances 

schedules, I presume? Do you think they may make sense? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. Well, I think that as part of the project of looking 

at the Federal criminal code, a reconsideration of the controlled 

substances schedule would be in order. But I think that raises one 

of the points made earlier, that we really need to rely on expertise, 

right? And we need to supply to the Committee and the Congress—— 

Mr. COHEN. But you think there are problems with the controlled 

substances, or do you think it is all logical? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. Well, not necessarily all logical. So I think that 

there can be differences of opinion with regard to the schedules. 

Mr. COHEN. Do you think marijuana should be in the same class 

as heroin? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. Again, my mother is a pharmacist and has much 

greater expertise, and I have neither never used either substances, 

but I can tell you—— 

Mr. COHEN. You do not have to use the substances. [Laughter.] 

Mr. FAIRFAX. I know, but so again—— 

Mr. COHEN. You probably know some people that have used one 

of the substances more than the other. [Laughter.] 
71 

Mr. FAIRFAX. But I do think that a rational approach to making 

gradations among the various controlled substances, and determining which substances even belong on the schedule, should be 

part of the conversation, yes. 

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Cline, Attorney Cline, do you have a thought 

about it? 

Mr. CLINE. First, I want to ask for immunity for Mr. Fairfax. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. FAIRFAX. I do not need it. 

Mr. CLINE. I think the drug laws are a mess, partly because of 

the substantive provisions and the way different substances have 

been lumped in together, largely because of the mandatory minimums, which just produce these ridiculously harsh sentences and 

distort the whole rest of the system. 

There was a discussion about plea-bargaining. When a prosecutor has as a mandatory minimum in his back pocket, the pleabargaining is going to take a much different form than when he 

does not. And it is going to produce, in many cases, an unjust result. 

Mr. COHEN. And, Professor O’Sullivan, you said that you are one 

of the rare people who support the guidelines, and I am against 

any racial, ethnic, blah, blah, blah. But is not the effect of that is 

that there is now injustice for all, rather than just for most? 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. I do not actually think so. I think, yes, they are 

too harsh, but they are too harsh because the statutory maximum, 

they are built on the statutory maximum that Congress set. I am 

not accusing you. But I think if Congress decided to scale down the 

penalties, there is nothing inevitable about the amount of time that 

the guidelines provide for. 

What I like is the structure, that there is a guaranteed set of 

considerations that we view as necessary to a particular sentence. 

It is relevant how much loss there is for fraud. 

And I just think that we are all human. And it used to be, and 

it is now today, true, that if you walked into courtroom A and this 

judge thought antitrust was terrible, you could get 20 years. If you 

walk into courtroom B and this judge does not have a problem with 

it, you can get probation. 

Mr. COHEN. As you said, we are all human, and every case has 

individual factors. What if one person had a certain drug—marijuana—and the second person had it, and they both possessed it in 

same quantity, but one person had it because their spouse was 

dying, and the State had not allowed medical marijuana, but the 

spouse needed it and wanted it. And the other was doing it because 

it made their dinner better. Do not you think the judge should be 

able to distinguish in those cases? 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. And there are two ways you could do it under 

the guidelines. You could do it by looking where within the range 

you should sentence people, and you could depart. The original contemplation of the guidelines was that departures would be freely 

given based on offender circumstances because offender circumstances could not be reduced to formulas the way—— 

Mr. COHEN. Let me go to your favorite subject. You wrote about 

the Honest Services Act. I have to admit, I have not read you law 

review article, which maybe I should. 
72 

Do you give a proposed statute to cure the problem with honest 

services there? 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Labrador? 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you very much for being here today. 

And, Mr. Chairman, thank you again for this I think very important Committee. It is one of my favorite things that I am doing 

here in Congress. 

But Justice Scalia said a few years ago that maybe we should 

take more cases to trial, that one of the problems with our criminal 

system is that we do not have enough incentive to go to trial. And 

I believe, as a conservative, that what he was talking about is I 

think what Mr. Cline said, or somebody said, that liberty should 

be a very difficult thing to take away from an individual. 

Our Constitution was not contemplating a bunch of people in 

prison. Our Constitution, our Founding Fathers, were contemplating a very difficult time for the state to take somebody’s liberty 

away. 

So as we are contemplating redoing the criminal code, and all 

those things, how much should we consider that it should actually 

be more difficult to try cases, not easier to put people in prison? 

Mr. VOLKOV. Well, I think that you are getting at a very big 

point. Remember this, only 7 percent of the Federal cases go to 

trial; 93 percent end up in a plea bargain. What is the best tactic 

that prosecutors have? I have been at meetings, I was a prosecutor 

for 20 years, it is called stacking. 

You take the crime, you put as many offenses into it as he can, 

and you stack it up. I have had people and prosecutors tell me 

straight up when I was working up here on the Committee, I would 

say, why do we have this 18 U.S.C. 371 conspiracy? It is a 5-year 

maximum. They said, ‘‘Don’t ever take that away. I stack it up and 

I use it for plea-bargaining leverage, so that I can take a case, and 

if I want to say, instead of charging a 20-year offense, a 10-your 

offense, and making someone plea to it, I will say, you know what? 

Your circumstances are not so bad. I will give you this 5-year offense.’’ 

They are dispensing justice, not the judge, in that circumstance. 

And I do not think that this Committee or Congress ever thought 

that that is the way the system was going to work. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So I would take other comments from the rest of 

the panelists. 

Mr. CLINE. I am happy to address that. There are so few trials 

in the Federal system these days because the prosecutor holds all 

the cards. The defense knows that. And so the plea-bargaining 

process is a very imbalanced procedure. 

I am not saying do away with plea-bargaining. I think it is always going to have an important role. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Correct. 

Mr. CLINE. But when you have mandatory minimum sentences, 

you have a multiplicity of charges that can be brought against the 

defendant. You have forfeitures, often mandatory, that can ruin 

somebody financially. You have extremely harsh sentences. You 
73 

have vague doctrines like willful blindness that increase the 

chances of conviction. 

When that is the arena and a defendant is looking at a choice 

between pleading guilty, even if he thinks he is not, and getting 

2 or 3 years, and risking going to trial and perhaps getting 20 

years and a multimillion dollar forfeiture, many defendants are 

going to decide to cut their losses. 

I think to have more trials, many different interrelated aspects 

of the Federal system need to change in the direction of fairness. 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. I will just bring one other point up, because I 

do white-collar. I ca not remember the last time a corporation went 

to trial, because it is literally impossible for corporations to resist 

prosecutors these days, because of the fine, market value problems, 

all kinds of different kinds of penalties that are applicable to corporations, including debarment and suspension from government 

contracting or delicensing, like Arthur Anderson. 

So I can tell you that the accepted wisdom in the defense bar is 

do not even think about resisting a Government overture for a plea 

in a corporate context. 

And now the Government is just going with what are called 

D.P.s. They are not even resolving these cases criminally because 

that is too difficult. So the Department of Justice reaches a civil 

resolution. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. Just for the Committee, I just think 

that is something we should think, especially on our side of the 

aisle, as conservatives, I think we should be very concerned about 

the state having so much power that criminal defense attorneys are 

afraid to go to trial, because they know that they take more risk 

going to trial than defending liberty and property, and the things 

that the Government should not easily take away from defendants. 

But thank you very much. I yield back my time. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I am told that we will be voting between 

10:20 and 10:30. 

The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. It is not so much the sheer volume of 

criminal laws on the books and how they are apportioned among 

the various titles of the U.S. Code. It is really a matter of what is 

the impact of over-criminalization on society. 

And I think that from the standpoint of how the Committee 

should approach this issue, I think we should do it in a piecemeal 

fashion as opposed to an overall solution, because it will simply 

take too much time to get at the worst aspects of over-criminalization. 

In my mind, it has to do with the realm of drug prosecutions. 

And to piggyback on one of the issues that Mr. Labrador raised, 

the defendant’s ability to take a case to trial, any time you can get 

a 2 percent to 3 percent offense level downward departure for acceptance of responsibility, then it means that if you go to trial, then 

you are going to be deprived of that downward departure. 

And, in fact, you would probably end up at the top end, if you 

dared to go to trial and then testify. So you actually get punished 

for having a trial and taking the stand and testifying. You may do 

so because you feel like you are not guilty, but you end up getting 

punished on top of the base offense level and whatever criminal 
74 

history you may or may not have. You are going to get punished 

for going to trial. 

So that is one thing that I can do pretty easily to address Mr. 

Labrador’s concern. 

But when it comes to the overall sentencing guideline concept, 

what we have is the transfer of discretion from the judge in terms 

of disposition, to the prosecutor in terms of charging. So a prosecutor can decide to charge a person with a crime that has a base 

offense level higher than perhaps one that would be better suited 

for the conduct alleged. 

So with that prosecutorial decision having been made, then it 

limits the judge in terms of how to best dispose of the case, taking 

into mind the crime itself, the condition of the victims, the status 

of the defendant, or prior criminal history, those kinds of things. 

And I think that we can get to those kinds of issues and address 

the problem that President Obama highlighted yesterday with his 

call for this My Brother’s Keeper concept that would keep so many 

young Black males, would really enhance their ability to become 

first-class citizens of society, as opposed to this second-class citizenship, which some call Jim Crow. 

Would anyone comment on that? 

Mr. FAIRFAX. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Your comments raise a couple points. One is the issue of collateral consequences. That is a significant issue and it relates to what 

Mr. Cohen and I were discussing, and what Mr. Baucus alluded to 

in his earlier comments on the impact of collateral consequences, 

particularly on those convicted of lower-level, nonviolent drug offenses. It is just tremendous. 

And there is a project under way right now under the auspices 

of the Department of Justice, and being conducted by the American 

Bar Association, to essentially catalog all of the collateral consequences in jurisdictions all around the country, so that practitioners and policymakers and lawmakers can understand the implications of the criminalization that they engage in when they make 

these criminal laws. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

And last but not least, the gentleman from New York, Mr. 

Jeffries. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the witnesses 

for their very thoughtful testimony. 

It seems that as it relates to the problem of over-criminalization 

that this Task Force is encountering, there are potentially three 

areas of exploration as it relates to the problem we seek to address. 

We have a tremendous explosion of the Federal criminal code, as 

it relates to regulatory offenses, as it relates to drug offenses spanning a wide spectrum. 

You have limitations on judicial discretion, perhaps inconsistent 

with a view of an independent judiciary as a third branch but coequal branch of government. 

And then I think a related issue that some of you have begun 

to mention, and some of my colleagues have talked about during 

their time, is prosecutorial overreach. 
75 

That third area, prosecutorial overreach, seems to be enhanced 

by or made more difficult by both an explosion of the Federal criminal code and a limitation on judicial expression. 

And so I would be interested, and perhaps we can start with Mr. 

Cline, how do we deal with the problem of prosecutorial overreach 

and the imbalance or the harm that is caused by it, and the imbalance and the threat to liberty, when you have an overly aggressive 

prosecutor taking advantage of the explosion of Federal crimes, 

and, in certain instances, the limitation of judicial discretion? 

Mr. CLINE. Let me start by distinguishing between prosecutorial 

misconduct and prosecutorial overreach. Misconduct is, for example, the failure to turn over exculpatory information, improper comments in closing arguments, that kind of thing. And I take it that 

is not what you are talking about. 

What you are talking about, I think, is prosecutors as advocates 

using the tools they have to extort—I use that word advisedly— 

harsh plea agreements, to coerce defendants into not going to trial. 

I do not view that, necessarily, as anything bad on the part of 

prosecutors. They are advocates. They want to win their cases, and 

they use the tools available to them. 

The key is many of those tools I view as unfair. Mandatory minimums are a perfect example, but there are others as well—the 

whole doctrine of willful blindness, some aspects of the sentencing 

guidelines, forfeitures. 

There are tools prosecutors have that they should not have. If 

you take those tools away, if you level the playing field, I think you 

will see many fewer instances of prosecutorial overreach. 

Another example, by the way—— 

Mr. JEFFRIES. I appreciate that distinction. I want to hone in on 

it for a second, as long as things that can be done to deal with 

prosecutorial overreach. 

As it relates to misconduct, the withholding of exculpatory evidence, for instance, do you think that the law currently has sufficient incentives built into it to punish or deter prosecutorial misconduct? 

Mr. CLINE. Absolutely not. I realize that is not the topic of this 

hearing, but I feel very strongly that discovery reform is necessary. 

Brady is not working. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Professor O’Sullivan? 

Ms. O’SULLIVAN. I completely agree. There have been scandal 

after scandal after scandal on the Brady front. 

I agree with your point about prosecutorial discretion. The difficulty, of course, is that constitutionally it would be very difficult 

for Congress to constrain their discretion directly. And that is why 

we all think code reform is such a good thing, because you can affect their discretion by affecting what tools have. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Yes? 

Mr. VOLKOV. The best way to constrain what you see as prosecutorial overreach is to have a clean code, a code that does not allow 

stacking, does not allow multiplicity of offenses. 

One act can result in 10 charges. It should not work that way. 

You should have the ability to constrain that discretion. 

One important point, though, when we go back to the guidelines, 

that has not been raised, is that Senator Kennedy was probably the 
76 

biggest proponent of the guidelines for fear of what he saw was racial discrimination in terms of the sentencing by judges at that 

time. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Now what is interesting about that question, I 

think you are going to have human error, and you are going to 

have human bias in any judicial system. And I think the one thing 

for us all to explore is whether we think that that human error, 

human bias, is more likely or more dangerous when vested in the 

prosecutorial area or whether it is more likely or more dangerous 

when found in the judicial branch. 

And I think the Founders, at least, built a system in place as it 

relates to lifetime tenure that that was designed to mitigate out at 

least the possibility of human bias in the judiciary. 

And that is something we should all think about, and I yield 

back. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

I think that this has been another very interesting hearing that 

this Task Force has had with a lot of ideas. 

I get back to the fact that I think that the challenge of getting 

this done is to have the first step be policy neutral. 

So with that happy admonition, without objection, the Task 

Force is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:27 a.m., the Task Force was adjourned.] 

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