by Sarah Hody, Martin Kwedar
Washington Legal Foundation
July 19, 2010
One of the most effective ways to fix the problem of overzealous prosecutors is to remove vague and ambiguous criminal laws altogether. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution guarantee rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, to confront opposing witnesses, to a jury of peers, and additional enumerated rights to confer a general guarantee to a fair trial. With federal criminal laws like the vague backdating violations, the recently weakened but still arguably open-ended honest services fraud law, and others, prosecutors have great latitude to pick a target and prosecute that individual as a criminal. By removing ambiguous federal crimes, prosecutors will be compelled to focus on cases where concrete, criminal violations of the law occurred.



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