A Stitch in Haste

"The robbery offense in [the Hobbs Act] is to be utilized only in instances involving organized crime, gang activity, or wide-ranging schemes."
--Department of Justice, U.S. Attorneys Manual 9-131.040

We need to keep an eye on this guy:

The effect of our Court's rulings is that every local robbery of a business in the United States is a federal crime. I acknowledge that the Supreme Court has held that Congress intended to include within the scope of the Hobbs Act* conduct that was already punishable under the state robbery and extortion statutes. However, I cannot believe that this is what the Founding Fathers intended. Moreover, I have harbored the hope that the Supreme Court in Lopez was seeking to restore a proper state-federal balance that gives actual meaning to the term federalism. I also hope that the Supreme Court will consider the issue[.]

That from Senior Sixth Circuit Judge Richard F. Suhrenreich on the question of whatever happened to "new federalism" commerce clause jurisprudence, and concluding that his circuit's precedents (which he felt compelled to apply in upholding a criminal conviction -- maybe he's not so "activist" after all) conflict with the landmark Supreme Court cases U.S. v. Lopez** and U.S. v. Morrison***, both holding, in essence, that the federal government should stick to its federal knitting and leave local crime to local law enforcement.

The case is U.S. v. Baylor, No. 07-3002 (February 26, 2008) (PDF - 5 pages) (Via How Appealing.)

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*18 U.S.C. § 1951.

**U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995) (federal government may only criminalize economic activity that "substantially affects" interstate commerce).

***U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000) ("the suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims" has traditionally been a state and not a federal matter).