At last, Congress may revise the dated criminal laws
There are federal laws that forbid persons to detain a Government carrier pigeon or to use the likeness of Smokey Bear without permission, and bar seamen from seducing passengers on a steamship. Yet there is no national statute prohibiting bank extortion, and some espionage offenses are buried in the chapter on atomic energy. These are just a few of the peculiarities of federal criminal law, a hodgepodge of 3,000 statutes that have accumulated since the first days of the republic. As a whole, says Senate Judiciary Committee Special Counsel Kenneth Feinberg, the aide...
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