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"Rough justice: America locks up too many people, some for acts that should not even be criminal"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this new commentary in The Economist.  Here is how it gets started: In 2000 four Americans were charged with importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than cardboard boxes, in violation of a Honduran regulation that Honduras no longer enforces.  They had fallen foul of the Lacey Act, which bars Americans from breaking foreign rules when hunting or fishing. The original intent was to prevent Americans from, say, poaching elephants in Kenya. But it has been interpreted to mean that they must abide by every footling wildlife regulation on Earth. The lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got eight years apiece. Two are still in jail. America is different from the rest of the world in lots of ways, many of them good...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on July 23, 2010 (boomark / email).