Penal Code of the United States: Report of the Commission to Revise and Codify the Criminal and Penal Laws of the United States (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Penal Code of the United States: Report of the Commission to Revise and Codify the Criminal and Penal Laws of the United States

It may be assumed that the purpose of Congress was to provide a more comprehensive system of laws for the punishment of offenses against the United States than is found in existing statutes. The original crimes act was passed at the second session of the First Con gress and received the signature of President Washington on the 3oth of April, 1790. It consisted of 33 sections, and not all of these related to the definition and punishment of crimes. Mr. Justice Story recog nized the inadequacy of this statute and drafted a bill which became the act of March 3, 1825. These are the only acts of Congress which partake of the character of criminal or penal codes. The rest of the legislation respecting crimes consists of acts passed from time to time as experience disclosed the insufficiency of existing laws to enable the courts to deal with particular offenses, or as the growing opera tions of the Government created a necessity for additional penal enact ments.

Title LXX of the Revised Statutes of 1874, entitled Crimes, con sists of 228 sections. Referring to the Criminal Code of Alabama, for example, it is found to contain sections of which 7 62 relate to procedure, while 570 are devoted to the definition and punishment of crimes.

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