Thought you would see the humor in this article! Liz
State criminal Codes Said Confusing
CHICAGO (AP) - Some laws leave it up to judges to define what murder or rape is. Others fail to explain the differences between various charges of manslaughter.
And still others are downright bizarre - like the Michigan law that has separate charges for trespassing in cranberry, huckleberry or blackberry marshes.
A study by Northwestern University released today surveyed the criminal codes of all 50 states, the federal government and the District of Columbia and found some disturbing trends.
``Our study shows that poor writing, incoherent organization, unclear or missing fundamental elements, absurd criminal offenses and haphazard or arbitrary punishment systems ar frighteningly common in American criminal law,'' said Paul H. Robinson, a Northwestern professor of law and an author of the study.
The study rates the criminal codes of Texas, Colorado, Arkansas, Alaska, Missouri, Utah and Arizona as the most effective at defining crimes and explaining their penalties. The governments with the worst criminal codes were in Vermont, Washington, D.C., Michigan, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, West Virginia and Mississippi.
For example, the North Carolina manslaughter provision offers no guidance on the meaning of the term ``manslaughter,'' or how two different forms of manslaughter differ from one another or from murder.
And in Oklahoma, the code deems certain people incapable of committing crimes - including idiots and lunatics - but doesn't explain how someone fits into one of those categories.
``It appears in Oklahoma, the fact that a criminal is an idiot might actually be his saving grace,'' the study said.
Baltimore County Assistant District Attorney Sue Schenning said a committee has been working for at least five years to revise Article 27, as the state's criminal code is called.
Maryland - among the states in Robinson's survey with the worst criminal codes - is a common law state that tends to give wide discretion to judges and prosecutors.
``What the court was seeing was a wide range of punishment for assault convictions,'' Schenning said. ``In one county, a judge would sentence an offender to 20 years in prison and in another an offender was getting probation for the same offense.''
Robinson said he has sent his study to all the nation's governors in the hope that state officials will read it and realize it's time to revise their laws.
``When you have a criminal code that is not clear, (it) creates enforcement discretion by police, prosecutors and jurors, sometimes resulting in people who are not popular, (perhaps) a member of a minority group, getting prosecuted,'' said Robinson.