Tag Archives: Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
The Court and Overcriminalization: Bond v. United States and Yates v. United States
In both Bond v. United States and Yates v. United States, the Supreme Court reversed federal criminal convictions. Neither defendant’s conduct was constitutionally protected; there were no procedural irregularities in either trial, no vagueness or overbreadth issues, and no police misconduct (debatable) . Instead, each case involved prosecuting a small-time individual with a big-time statute: In Bond, the federal government used the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998 against a “jilted wife.” In Yates, it unleashed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on a mischievous fisherman. Both proceedings raised concerns about overcriminalization that implicitly drove the Court’s analysis in a new direction. Read the rest here 13:00
