If you haven’t seen James Duane’s video, you should spend the 20 minutes and watch his portion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE).

Professor Duane has a book out (Amazon affiliate link below) which everyone should read – the short summary is: do not talk to the police without an attorney present.

He only has one error while talking about the shear number of laws on the books. On page 25 he says:

The monstrous potential for injustice created by this modem farce has become, quite by accident, the most important reason why the Fifth Amendment is now more precious than ever before.

He believes that the proliferation of laws that can be enforced or not is by accident. It is not. It is intentional. What better way to keep a populace in control than by making them a nation of lawbreakers – 3 felonies a day Professor Duane states? Guilt and potential prosecution make people pliable and that is the goal. We no longer have a limited government.

What he neglects to mention or perhaps to consider is that if it wasn’t for the far-left’s expansion of the size and scope of the Federal government, much of this need would be negated. The US Constitution was written as a document of enumerated powers with the Bill of Rights being a secondary backstop to governmental power. With the expansion of the reach of the government over the past 100-150 years, the relationship has been flipped with the left believing the US Constitution is a document of enumerated liberties.

The impact of the authoritarian expansion of the Federal government is felt everywhere, notably in criminal law. Hopefully Professor Duane considers the matter deeper in the future and realizes that at root, the cause is not as superficial as he believes.

His advice remains accurate even if he doesn’t ponder the true cause deeply enough.

Here is the book: