One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty
America is in the throes of overcriminalization: We are making and enforcing far too many criminal laws that create traps for the innocent but unwary and threaten to make criminals out of those who are doing their best to be respectable, law-abiding citizens. Key developments in criminal law and practice over the past few decades have raised troubling questions about the fairness of our criminal justice system as it affects the average American. It is time to confront these questions, analyze them, and subject them to serious, vigorous debate.
One Nation Under Arrest highlights a major effort to return the criminal law to its traditional and proper role in society: to ensure public safety and protect the innocent. With first-hand stories from victims of overcriminalization, One Nation Under Arrest sheds light on an insidious problem that few recognize or care about but which is vital to the fundamental values of the Republic and our concept of justice. Overcriminalization should concern everyone in America, both as citizens and as potential accused. Much is at stake for our freedoms and the freedoms of future generations. Taking the steps necessary to ensure that American criminal law once again routinely exemplifies the right principles and purposes will require much work, but the alternative is to squander the great treasure that is the American criminal justice system.
Just when you thought it was safe to leave your home, the federal government may have made you a criminal for very innocent actions. This book includes staggering true stories and information that make Kafka novels sound like Dr. Seuss. These authors have done the work to bring light to darkness in federal law and expose the criminalization of innocent actions. If you have ever had a chemistry set, have ever mailed anything, or just minded your own business, be very afraid, read this book, contact your attorney, and then demand that your Congressman help make this once again the land of the free and home of people who have reason to be brave.
Louie Gohmert, United States Congress
You could be a criminal! Literally thousands of laws exist that most people don t know about and which penalize conduct that few would even imagine was criminal. This book tells the story of ordinary Americans who were prosecuted and even jailed for everyday activities that ran afoul of the multitude of statutes and regulations that can be used by governments to trap the unwary. <P> One Nation Under Arrest shines a spotlight on the problem of overcriminalization the skyrocketing trend at both the state and federal levels of criminalizing conduct that could be regulated through civil law or administrative action, or shouldn t even be regulated at all. It is a must-read for anyone concerned with modern attacks on our most basic liberties.
Mark Levin, host of The Mark Levin Show and author of Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
