Statement About the Report of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws

OVER two centuries the Federal criminal law of the United States has evolved in a manner both sporadic and haphazard. Needs have been met as they have arisen. Ad hoc solutions have been utilized. Many areas of criminal law have been left to development by the courts on a case-by-case basis--a less than satisfactory means of developing broad governing legal principles.

Not unexpectedly with such a process, gaps and loopholes in the structure of Federal law have appeared; worthwhile statutes have been found on the books side by side with the unusable and the obsolete. Complex, confusing, and even conflicting laws and procedures have all too often resulted in rendering justice neither to society, nor to the accused.

Laws that are not clear, procedures that are not understood, undermine the very system of justice of which they are the foundations.

In 1966, Congress undertook to provide the United States with a modern, comprehensive, and workable Federal code. The first major step in that effort was an act of Congress ¹ creating the Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws--and its principal author was Congressman Richard H. Poff of Virginia.

¹ Public Law 89-801, 80 Stat. 1516

Composed of distinguished legislators, judges, attorneys--all of demonstrated competence in the field of Federal criminal law--the Commission was mandated to review exhaustively the Federal criminal code and to make recommendations for both procedural and substantive reform.

The Commission has fulfilled its mandate, and I was pleased to receive its report. My personal appreciation goes to the members of the Commission, the Advisory Committee, and the staff--and especially to the Commission Chairman, the Honorable Edmund G. Brown, the Vice Chairman, Congressman Poff, and the Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Justice Tom Clark.

Even a brief examination of the report indicates the enormous investment of time and thought it represents, and the value of this vast work of 4 years. Because of its scope and its various approaches to controversial problems, it would be premature at this time for me to render judgment on the substance of the recommendations.

What is apparent, however, is that the 92d Congress has been given what the 89th Congress had requested--a broad comprehensive framework in which to decide the issues involved in reform of the Federal criminal code.

I have directed the Attorney General to create and staff a team of experienced Justice Department attorneys to undertake their own evaluation of the Commission's many suggestions and, further, to make the results of their evaluation available to the appropriate committees of the Congress. Further, I have directed the Department to work with Congress in the same close and cooperative spirit that marked the evolution and passage of the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970.

Certainly, the need for clarification and modernization of Federal criminal law is as great as was the need for reform of the criminal law and procedures of the District of Columbia. Just as in the latter, so in the former, procedural reform must go hand-in-glove with substantive reform--as the Chief Justice recommended himself in the State of the Judiciary message.

Further, if the same spirit of bipartisan cooperation prevails in this new endeavor, as it did in the last, our success is assured.