Law Commons^™

Congressional Inquiry And The Federal Criminal Law, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

Federal criminal law has become so far-reaching that scholars and commentators on both the political left and political right have joined forces to demand serious reforms related to defining, prosecuting, and punishing federal crimes. This Article makes the case for greater attention to, and use of, congressional inquiry powers – investigation and oversight – to constrain the massive federal criminal law regime. This Article first identifies, through existing law and scholarship, some of the problems of the federal regime, including over-federalization, anemic limits on prosecutorial power, and the ordinary politics that contribute to these problems. Using the 2009 and 2010 …