Dan Kennedy
The Guardian
November 18, 2009
[efoods]Sharp-elbowed business executives and grasping politicians may not be especially popular figures within the American iconography. But membership in either of those classes is not a federal crime.
Except when it is.
In an important new book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, Boston civil-rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate argues that over the past several decades the federal government, relying on vague, dangerously elastic statutes, has criminalised a whole range of activities. The result, Silverglate contends, is that people are regularly sent to prison for crimes they hadn’t even known they’d committed.
“Wrongful prosecution of innocent conduct that is twisted into a felony charge has wrecked many an innocent life and career. Whole families have been devastated, as have myriad relationships and entire companies,” writes Silverglate, a friend as well as an occasional collaborator.
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