The vast majority of criminal law is made by states. This
is because there are very few crimes that involve the federal
government.
The federal government can only criminalize
actions that have some special relevance to the federal government or which occur
between states. For example, theft of the mail is a federal crime because it is
committed against a part of the federal government (the post office). The same goes for
federal income tax evasion. Some crimes do not occur within one state. For example, a
RICO case involving an organized crime family that operates in New York, New Jersey, and
Florida had to be brought by the federal government because the crimes are part of
interstate commerce.
Outside of that, though, fall the vast
majority of crimes. These are crimes wholly committed within one state, having nothing
to do with the federal government.
No comments:
Post a Comment