"Defending the White Collar Case: In & Out of Court"

LOCATION: Westin DC City Center Hotel, Washington, DC
DATES: October 23-26, 2019

Written statement of NACDL second vice president E.E. (Bo) Edwards to the Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control regarding the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (H.R. 3164, 106th Congress).

Joint amicus curiae brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the New York Council of Defense Lawyers.

Argument: Defendants should be sentenced based only upon those losses that their conduct proximately caused. The government’s efforts to limit proximate cause analysis to securities fraud cases are unconvincing and unsupported; application of proximate cause principles will avoid unjust results that conflict with the purposes of the guidelines.

NACDL Forfeiture Abuse Task Force co-chair Samuel Buffone's written statement to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight regarding the use of federal asset forfeiture.

Professor David Zlotnick's written statement to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime regarding the proposed Consumer Product Protection Act of 2001 to address the modifying of consumer product packaging.

Letter to the Senate regarding additional and enhanced sentencing guidelines in the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today (PROTECT) Act of 2003 (S. 151).

Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding additional and enhanced sentencing guidelines in the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today (PROTECT) Act of 2003 (S. 151) and Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act (S. 153).

Coalition letter to members the Senate regarding sentencing guidelines in the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act (S. 153).

Comparative table on sentencing for fraud cases and guidelines comparison for 2005 to 2009.

Comparative Fraud Case Sentencing Table in Word and pdf formats.

Comparative Fraud Case Sentencing Table Endnotes in pdf format.

NACDL frequently testifies or provides comments on new and evolving criminal legislation and policies affecting white collar-related criminal law. This includes live testimony before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, as well as written testimony, letters, and commentary submitted to Congress, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other executive branch agencies.

Letter to members of Congress working on legislation addressing corporate responsibility regarding creating a new general attempt crime.

Overcriminalization is a dangerous trend that NACDL battles daily. With over 4,450 crimes scattered throughout the federal criminal code, and untold numbers of federal regulatory criminal provisions, our nation's addiction to criminalization backlogs our judiciary, overflows our prisons, and forces innocent individuals to plead guilty not because they actually are, but because exercising their constitutional right to a trial is prohibitively expensive and too much of a risk. This inefficient and ineffective system is, of course, a tremendous taxpayer burden.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was enacted in 1986, as an amendment to the first federal computer fraud law, to address hacking. Over the years, it has been amended several times, most recently in 2008, to cover a broad range of conduct far beyond its original intent. The CFAA prohibits intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or in excess of authorization, but fails to define what “without authorization” means. With harsh penalty schemes and malleable provisions, it has become a tool ripe for abuse and use against nearly every aspect of computer activity.