Decarceration and Default Mental Status

Benjamin Levin

Associate Professor of Law 
University of Colorado Law School

On June 14, 2013, the House Judiciary Committee’s Overcriminalization Task Force convened a hearing on “Defining the Problem and Scope of Over Criminalization and Over-Federalization. The hearing featured testimony
from four witnesses: George J. Terwilliger, III, a white-collar defense attorney and former U.S. Attorney and Acting Attorney General, William N. Shepard of the American Bar Association, John G. Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation, and Steven D. Benjamin of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

In introducing the hearing, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, the Task Force Chairman, argued that “the need for reform becomes particularly apparent when you read the stories of well-meaning Americans whose lives have been turned upside down when they run afoul of an obscure Federal statute.”