Model Resolution: Regulatory Overcriminalization Task Force

In the last two years, academics and scholars of public policy have identified North Carolina as a state with an overly
complex criminal code that can ensnare small businesses, farmers, and individuals who unknowingly fail to comply
with regulatory rules. In 2014, Professor Jeff Welty of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government published an article
in the North Carolina Law Review, Overcriminalization in North Carolina; and James Copland and Isaac Gorodetski,
directors respectively of the Center for Legal Policy and the Center for State and Local Leadership at the Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research, published a primer, Overcriminalizing the Old North State (see attached). The latter
paper observes:

North Carolinas 765-section criminal code is 55 percent larger than Virginias and 38 percent larger
than South Carolinas.
A large number of crimesincluding drug and motor-vehicle offenses, regulatory crimes, and local
ordinanceslie outside the states criminal code.
Over the last six years, the state has created, on average, 34 crimes annually, over half of which are
felonies. Among new crimes created in 2009 and 2010, 68 percent were never charged in 2012, and
only 23 percent were charged more than once.
Many of these new crimes have not required criminal intent, meaning individuals could be held
criminally responsible for violating rules unknowingly.
The General Statutes are riddled with catchall provisions that vest administrative state and local
agenciesand private licensing boardsthe effective authority to criminalize entire sections of the
regulatory code, including regulations dealing with public health, agriculture, and the environment.
Even assuming most prosecutors effectively exercise sufficient discretion, the vast reach of North
Carolinas criminal law creates a serious risk of wide variance in treatment across jurisdictions, as
well as a diversion of scarce resources away from the enforcement of serious violent and property
crimes.

This spring, the John Locke Foundation hosted public discussions with Manhattan Institute scholars on this subject and
led a listening tour to solicit the input of elected leaders and public administrators in Raleigh. There appears to be
strong bipartisan support to take legislative action of some kind, especially regarding regulatory crimes and criminal
intent standards.
One practical option to address this issue is to create a bipartisan legislative task force to study itthe first
recommendation for action in the Manhattan Institutes study. There is precedent in North Carolina for such a special
purpose task force. See, e.g., Sess. L. 2009-451, S.B. 202 18.9 (youth accountability planning); Sess. L. 2009-574,
H.B. 945 49 (childhood obesity). A task force could be established by resolution, a draft version of which is attached.
Scholars at the Locke Foundation and Manhattan Institute are available to discuss these issues in further detail.