Executive Order on Overcriminalization in Federal Regulations
On May 9, President Trump issued a new Executive Order ( EO ) titled “Fighting Overcriminalization in Federal Regulations” to address criminal enforcement of regulatory offenses, particularly strict liability offenses where the offender need not have had a culpable state of mind to be convicted. On the whole, the EO discourages the criminal enforcement of regulatory offenses except “where a putative defendant is alleged to have known his conduct was unlawful.” The impact of the EO is not yet clear, but it could have wide-ranging implications. The EO is meant to tackle what it deems an “absurd and unjust” system in which people are not always aware that their conduct could criminally violate federal regulations due to the “drastically overregulated” system of government . According to the EO, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) contains over 48,000 sections and 175,000 pages, which is “far more than any citizen can possibly read, let alone fully understand.” As a resul...