The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior. The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets.
This is from the Amazon page on attorney Harvey Silverglate’s book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent.
The book is excellent.
The title is horrible. I read through most of the book. True, I skimmed some pages but I looked at every page. Nowhere could I find backup for the book’s title.
Why do I bother making this point? Because at least once a month I see someone on Facebook or elsewhere claim, referencing Silverglate’s book, that the average American commits three felonies a day. It might be true. I doubt that it’s true. I would bet the number is more like three felonies a month. That in itself is horrendous. But that doesn’t justify wildly exaggerating the problem.
Update:
Some of the comments of friends on Facebook suggest that some people who take the out-of-control system as seriously as I do are still hanging on to the “three felonies a day” formulation even if isn’t correct.
Let me give an analogy to show how wrong it is to exaggerate. Let’s say I’m right that it’s more like 3 felonies a month. In other words, it’s 1/30 of the Silverglate number. What if I had a net worth of $1 million and I wrote a book whose title suggested that I have a net worth of $30 million. Can everyone see the problem with that?
READER COMMENTS
Robert Coffey
Jan 5 2019 at 10:01am
I agree. I havent read the book but have read enough excerpts and reviews to know the title is outrageously wrong.
I was going to buy the book but passed based on that.
David Henderson
Jan 5 2019 at 10:22am
Thanks. I do recommend the book, though. The early part where he talks about the game prosecutors play with each other for fun is, on its own, almost worth the price. Then there are other points that are well-backed with evidence; that puts it over the top.
Chris
Jan 5 2019 at 5:05pm
I don’t think the title can be supported either. It’s been a while, but I recall any attempts relying on static conditions that are technically criminal, thus the individual commits the same felony every day anew (somewhat like perpetually driving with a tail light out).
Regardless, it’s a great book, and Silverglate’s has walked the walk for the entirely of his career. The Shadow University remains a classic and he co-founded FIRE. Pretty worthy work.
BC
Jan 6 2019 at 8:07am
The Amazon “Look Inside!” preview includes on pg. XXXVI of the Introduction a blurb that is very similar to the promotional blurb quoted above, with a very important prefacing modifier:
“…*it is only a slight exaggeration to say* that the average busy professional…likely committed several federal crimes that day.” (Emphasis added.)
The phrase “only a slight exaggeration”, despite its literal meaning, actually can mean that what follows is not merely a slight exaggeration at all if interpreted literally. So, for example, “slight exaggeration” doesn’t mean that the average professional commits a federal crime only once every few days or even weeks. Rather, what follows is to be interpreted figuratively, e.g., that many activities that the average professional might associate with non-criminal daily life might, in fact, turn out to technically be federal crimes or, at least, subject that person to risk of prosecution. Of course, when Amazon leaves out the phrase “only a slight exaggeration to say” from its promotional blurb, Amazon completely changes the meaning and, by extension, changes the “Three Felonies a Day” title from a figurative exaggeration to a literal (apparently unsubstantiated) claim.
Agreed that many people have erroneously taken the title literally. Until now, I had not realized that the “three felonies a day” claim originated from this book’s title and was not literally true.
Robert Schadler
Jan 6 2019 at 11:50am
Certainly agree on the title. Akin to the growing trend of saying “blah blah blah EVERY SINGLE DAY”. Almost always false. The sun rises and sets “every single day”; people are born and die “every single day.” Most things surge and fall over time. HOWEVER, that’s a small point: great many title of op-eds and books are designed to attract attention by hyperbole.
The big point is that “rule of law” CANNOT entail the impossibility of intelligent, decent, informed citizens who cannot stay on the right side of substantive laws. It then means prosecutors can convict anyone these choose to go after. Gives prosecutors the equivalent of “bill of attainder power.” Once in their focus, other felonies follow (e.g. misleading statements). Many of the people who might contribute the most to society subconsciously choose to avoid being bold and entrepreneurial, lest they attract too much attention and face possible prosecution/persecution.
David Henderson
Jan 6 2019 at 2:13pm
Your second paragraph is really well done. Thanks.
Vivian Darkbloom
Jan 6 2019 at 12:04pm
“I see someone on Facebook or elsewhere claim, referencing Silverglate’s book, that the average American commits three felonies a day. It might be true. I doubt that it’s true.”
I also doubt that is true because such an assertion is almost certainly unquantifiable, but also in part because the original text you quoted was somewhat different:
“The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day.”
In addition to the “slight exaggeration” disclaimer noted by BC above, you’ve omitted the important fact that he references “the average professional in (the US)”, not simply the “average American”. The idea seems to be that the “average professional” is subject to much more regulation, reporting requirements, etc., than the “average American” and that those rules can be a trap for the unwary and carry with them potential criminal penalties.
David Henderson
Jan 6 2019 at 2:14pm
Good distinction between average professional and average American. Thanks. I should have been more careful.
Mark Z
Jan 6 2019 at 7:46pm
In (sort of) defense of Silverglate’s title, I had always taken the title to be more of ‘turn of phrase’ than a statistic. Though I think if he’d just titled it, “A Felony a Day”, or “Everyday Felonies,” it would’ve lent itself less to the interpretation that it was a statistical claim.
Also, I think the book also makes an important point implicitly on ‘rule of law’ arguments as they relate to public policy. It’s common for people to argue, for example, that regardless of the merits of illegal immigration or economic regulations, their violators deserve to be punished simply because, “it’s the law.” We can’t just let the law go unenforced. Except the law (often very trivial laws) goes selectively unenforced – and selectively enforced – all the time, as illustrated in Silverglate’s book. It’s already a foregone conclusion that we pick in choose how many resources (if any at all) to devote to enforcing a particular crime, usually depending on how severe it’s considered by most people.
David Henderson
Jan 6 2019 at 9:24pm
Re your first paragraph: That means you weren’t fooled. Many people were. When I wrote for Fortune in the 1980s and 1990s, I had an editor who told me that the three rules of good writing were clarity, clarity, and clarity.
I agree with everything in your second paragraph.
Comments are closed.