Hearing of the House Judiciary Committee - Opening Statement of Rep. Goodlatte, Markup of H.R. 4002, the "Criminal Code Improvement Act of 2015"

Hearing

Today we consider H.R. 4002, the "Criminal Code Improvement Act of 2015," introduced by Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of both the Crime Subcommittee and the Committee's Over-Criminalization Task Force.

At the Task Force's first hearing, the witness panel unanimously agreed that the erosion of the mens rea requirement in Federal criminal law was the most pressing issue facing the Task Force. Indeed, during the remaining nine hearings held before the Task Force, we heard time and time again about the problem of inadequate criminal intent requirements.

This erosion, along with the expansion of the federal code -- to nearly 5,000 criminal statutes today, as well as hundreds of thousands of regulations carrying criminal penalties -- has resulted in a code that no average American citizen could be expected to read and understand, let alone conform his conduct to. As a result, the news is replete with stories of Americans who have been convicted of crimes -- and sometimes, sentenced to prison terms -- when they had no intent to break the law.

Of course, one of the main problems that led to this predicament is Congress itself. Recent Congresses have crafted scores of new federal criminal laws that lack adequate criminal intent requirements and define the criminalized conduct in unacceptably vague, overbroad terms.

However, we have already taken important steps to fix this problem. Earlier this year, at my direction, the Judiciary Committee sought and received a change to its Rule Ten jurisdiction. This change, which adds the word "criminalization" to our jurisdiction, will ensure that this Committee is able to receive a sequential referral whenever a bill amends the conduct associated with a criminal offense -- not just the penalty.

H.R. 4002 takes the next big step in this process. It makes a number of important changes to Title 18 of the U.S. Code. Most notably, it establishes a default mens rea standard of "knowingly," which will apply in cases where Federal criminal law, including longstanding statutory law and established case-law, does not provide a state of mind requirement for the particular offense.

H.R. 4002 also provides that, in situations where a reasonable person in the same or similar circumstances would not know, or would not have reason to believe, that his conduct was unlawful, the Government must prove that the defendant knew, or had reason to believe, the conduct was unlawful. This provision will address the problem of inadequate criminal intent requirements in crimes created by agency regulation -- or malum prohibitum crimes.

This is a very carefully crafted bill. Its intent is not to impose a "knowingly" requirement for every element of every statute. Its intent is to impose a mens rea provision where none currently exists, to protect American citizens who did not know or have reason to know that they were violating federal law, and to curb strict liability criminalization.

I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his work on the Task Force, and encourage my colleagues to support this important legislation.

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