The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act exemplifies the problems of overcriminalization. It creates dozens of new federal criminal offenses that are ambiguous and duplicative of existing federal and state regulations. The Act also grants unelected officials broad authority to promulgate new financial rules subjecting individual business owners to criminal sanction. Perhaps most alarming, Dodd-Frank’s criminal provisions lack adequate criminal-intent requirements and fail to protect innocent or inadvertent actors from wrongful punishment. 

Andrew Wise and the panelists will explain how to avoid overcriminalization – and how to fix Dodd-Frank’s flawed criminal provisions.  This event is sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.