First zero sense tolerance policies, now Glenn Reynolds on the proliferation of felonies on the books. When everyone's a felon, what does being a felon mean, anyway?
Felonies were once a fairly rare class of crime, a class that generally carried capital punishment as a more-than-theoretical possibility. A felon was, by virtue of his heinous acts, an outcast from society. Even if permitted to live, he was expected to bear the mark of his iniquity for life, in the form of lost civil rights like the right to vote and the right to bear arms. <snip> But felonies aren't so few anymore. New felonies are being created all the time, often for activity that seems, morally, not terribly awful. The currency of felony has been inflated, and has thus, inevitably, lost value.
In today's schools, if your child hasn't violated a zero tolerance policy, it's because no one has been paying attention. If you haven't committed a felony, it's because no one took official notice.
Prof. Reynolds proposes some fixes, the last of which is:
I also think that empowering juries to reject prosecutions that seem unfair would help.
Hmmm... Maybe if we insist on keeping judicial review around, let's give it to the juries.
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