NCJ Number
77556
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 72 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer 1981) Pages: 381-630
Date Published
1981
Length
250 pages
Annotation
Symposium papers regarding the proposed Federal Criminal Code touch on extraterritorial jurisdiction, corporate criminal liability, competency to stand trial, culpability provisions, extortion and labor disputes, and sentencing disparity.
Abstract
A brief evaluation of the proposed criminal code is offered, followed by a look at Federal criminal jurisdiction and extraterritorial applications of the Federal criminal law. The simultaneously beneficial and detrimental aspects of corporate conduct are then considered in a study of Section 1617 of Senate Bill 1722, the endangerment offense, which prohibits socially and environmentally harmful corporate activities. Attention then turns to the Senate and House proposed revisions of the Federal Criminal Code with regard to competency to stand trial. Clarification of mens rea, or culpability, provisions of the Federal Criminal Code are also discussed. Congressional efforts to revise the code to include labor-related violence in the Federal crime of extortion are examined next, with the conclusion that the Emmons case decision should hold against proposed revisions. Innovations aimed at the problem of disparate sentencing are the object of the two final studies. The first is a criminological evaluation of sentencing disparities based on empirical studies by a research group. In the second, a judge provides a legal analysis drawing on his practical experience on the Federal bench. Footnotes accompany individual papers.