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Local Offenses, Brenner M. Fissell

Fordham Law Review

Criminal law is generally thought to exist within two jurisdictional levels: federal and state. Neglected in the legal mind, and in legal scholarship, is the vast body of criminal law promulgated by local governments. While one should ask “what” is being criminalized by cities, towns, and villages, one should also ask “how” these offenses are written. The offense-drafting practices reflected in state criminal law have been extensively studied, but this has never been attempted for local offenses. This Article undertakes that task. After surveying a large number of local criminal codes, this Article concludes that local offenses routinely fail to …