Yeah. This I know.
OK, well I think Iâve done the best I can. Usually the confusion comes from âstateâ, scale, or comes from not knowing just how different our laws are between states. Thereâs also the âfair trialâ component, and not putting financial onus on one party.
Best I can say is that a jump to federal jurisdiction doesnât automatically mean that a crime is âworseâ than if committed within state. Some crimes just donât have a âstate versionâ because the nature of the crime will make them always a federal issue. Some seem worse, but thatâs only because theyâve been committed multiple times to be able to be committed in several states.
I hope I was some help. 
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No. Honestly I donât have any difficulty with concepts of scale or multitieredness or abstraction. These are by no means unique to the USA. Iâm not a young-earth creationist. I âgetâ big things and old things.
I just didnât see how the crime of sex-trafficking (in particular) where the name of the crime itself (more properly the wording of the relevant act, I suppose) specifically incorporates the state-line-crossing bit in a way that a similarly treated federal crime, such as bank robbery, does not, was ânecessaryâ.
OOOOOH! Well that I think I can explain.
Like I wrote - bank robbery, of an FDIC insured bank, is always a federal crime. Thatâs because the FDIC is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - an independent agency of the federal government. It guarantees all deposits for up to $250,000 against loss by theft or failure of the bank. Because the federal government must repay any money lost by a bank robbery, and they are the ones who control the mint, they automatically get involved when an FDIC-insured bank is robbed.
http://www.fdic.gov/about/learn/symbol/
The FDIC-part matters because not all banks are guaranteed by the FDIC. If you rob a credit union, you may be prosecuted at the state, federal or both levels. It all depends on their insurance, and your history.
Onto sex-trafficking. Within a state, sex trafficking of a minor may, or may not have specific code written for it. The only reason size matters in our country when talking about trafficking is because someone can travel so very far with a child and remain within state. The term âsex-traffickingâ doesnât refer to crossing a state line or other boundary. Instead, it refers to the trade of using humans for commercial sexual exploitation. (People are also trafficked for labor.) So the âtraffickingâ here is like âdrug traffickingâ - the sale and distribution of illegal drugs. You can do that in one state as well. Neither crime refers to the physical movement of the trade.
I honestly didnât mean any offense. Those are just the typical stumbling blocks - even for people who arenât young-earth creationists - and theyâve helped other people in the past. It wasnât until you just wrote what you did that I figured out what might really be the problem. I hope I got it right this time!
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But you have to understand the context in which the US and its Constitution was created. Given the heavy-handed, arbitrary nature of British rule, there was a lot of paranoia about government powers and a strong desire to limit government power. The US government was designed to be weak, and to have multiple levels of checks and balances. There are the three branches of governments, as well as all sorts of limits on government powers in the Bill of Rights (the first, second, fourth and fifth amendments are all examples that are very relevant today). Part of this limitation on government is that the Constitution and the tenth amendment limits the power of the federal government to powers enumerated in the constitution, with all other unenumerated powers going to the states.
The upshot of this is that the federal government needs some sort of hook before it can act. The power either has to be specifically enumerated in the Constitution, or it has to be somehow related to something the federal government has the power to do. You may see this as an awkward, dysfunctional, and inefficient limitation on what the federal government can do and how laws can be enforced, and you would be right. But this was actually what the founders intended, as they wanted to limit the potential for governmental tyranny. As a Canadian I find it pretty ridiculous and the cause of significant legal and statutory ossification, but itâs not so much a historical bug as a historical feature.
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@LemoUtan, something that used to confuse me as a fellow foreigner is that in the US the relationship between the different states as well as between the federal government and the states seemed significantly more antagonistic that what I was used to. All levels are eager to expand and defend their sphere of influence as much as the system allows even if that leads to redundant and competing structures.
In addition to that there is also the great reverence for the constitution in its exact current form.
Here it would be more likely that one of two things would happen. One possibility is that the federal government decides that one state or the other will probably deal with it and there is no reason not let them do their thing or to have any kind of opinion at all. Alternatively, if there is a consensus that some form of federal involvement is desirable, it would be authorized explicitly without any kabuki dance about state lines, even if that takes a constitutional amendment. On paper constitutional amendments in Germany are not even that much easier than in the US, but they still happen about once a year on average because the political tradition around them is vastly different.
Article 1 and 20 - protected by the so called Ewigkeitsklausel (eternity clause) - cannot be changed/amended in the german constitution. The idea was that the democratic core aspects (rule of law, republic, human rights, elections, federal state) of the constitution are inviolable - what the US manages through tradition is protected legalistically in Germany.
Thatâs because weâre a young nation ourself and similarly organized. Less than 200 years ago there was just a fleeting idea of a unified âGermanyâ. For the longest time in history there were several Germanys - lots of different states or alliances, fiercely opposed or even waging war against each other sometimes for decades. There was just a vague sense of being of german culture or speaking german.
I really think this is overcomplicating matters (but maybe for good reason).
Thank you @catgrin (or may I call you @cat?). Almost everyone here has been incredibly helpful and patient in their attempts to help me get unperplexed. Mostly theyâre not succeeding because I donât think Iâve encapsulated my problem simply enough. All this complexity and history is - to me - a red-herring and Iâm going to try one more time with bullets or paragraphs (a la @bizmail_public didacticism).
Thereâs the law of the land
Thereâs the law of the state
The land comprises a set of - geographically - mutually exclusive (non-overlapping) contiguous state (pace Alaska and Hawaii).
One may break the law of the land, or the law of the state (or both - itâs not xor).
If youâve already decided that a law is the law of the land and that it is possible to break the law of the land - why should it be a necessary component of that breakage that two or more states be involved in it?
I donât think I can be any clearer than that. It just seems an unnecessary requirement that you cross a state line to break a land law (letâs not confuse matters by bringing in the logically unnecessary term âfederalâ).
OK, so thatâs the logical basis of my perplexity. Is it reasonable, or unreasonable - purely logically - that I be perplexed by this? (@Nelsie may have already spotted this as being my problem). If you think it unreasonable then I must conclude thereâs something wrong with me (which is slightly - but not alarmingly - worrisome) because Iâve not encountered anyone else rushing to say âhey, me too!â.
I would hope not, That would be imposing a highly parochial definition on a term used by the rest of the world without any such implicit attachments.
Of course you didnât. Sometimes you have no way of knowing whether or not youâre addressing a five year old.
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Yes, but those articles are also so wonderfully general that in practice the restriction is only relevant in political doomsday scenarios.
Because the federal government doesnât have general police powers. They can only legislate in the areas the constitution authorizes them to do. Unenumerated powers are reserved for the states. So the federal government needs a constitutional hook to allow them to actually decide that something is the law of the land.
As has been mentioned, the commerce clause has been used to pull a lot of things into the federal sphere, as it allows the government to regulate things that affect interstate commerce. This is why many federal crimes are only implicated if you do things across state lines (even sex trafficking under the Mann Act is predicated on the commerce clause). Modern laws are much more lenient on this, as the commerce clause has been interpreted much more broadly in more recent times, and the Court has found that even things that happen within a state may affect interstate commerce: itâs on this basis that federal laws on marijuana have been upheld, even if the marijuana was grown and consumed within a single state, and even if marijuana was legal under the laws of that state.
Which - in terms of the small logical universe I described above is covered by another statement such as:
it is a necessary component of that [law of the land] breakage that two or more states be involved in it because there is a law of the land that says precisely that.
If thatâs all it really is, my lightbulb goes on, iyswim. If itâs not as simple as that, then my logical model needs to be complicated by extra bits. Which may well be what people have been trying to do all this time, but not in a way my poor brain can appreciate.
(The internet appears to be broken in the UK at the moment, largely due to a problem at BT is seems - hence the delay in response).
There is no necessary component ânecessary component of that breakage that two or more states be involved in it.â The Mann Act would criminalize interstate prostitution regardless of whether prostitution was legal or illegal in either state. Federal marijuana laws criminalize marijuana possession regardless of whether it is legal in any state. Both of these federal laws rely on the commerce clause and the possibility of interstate commerce to give the federal government the power to regulate; itâs only âthe law of the landâ because these activities affect interstate commerce. The federal government canât just âdecid[e] that a law is the law of the landâ: they also need a constitutional justification for making that law.
Logically, a constitutional basis is required because the founders logically wanted to restrain the power of the federal government. You seem to be using âlogicallyâ to mean âefficiently.â The fourth amendmentâs warrant requirement isnât very efficient or âlogical,â but itâs there to effectuate something the founders thought was pretty valuable. So does restricting the federal government to the powers enumerated in the constitution.
Yes! Indeed I believe it was introduced precisely because of that - mostly prostitution was not illegal in most places, or states in terms of my simplified model (except the reality was actually at a much finer grained level).
Note that I did not mean to suggest that my earlier âsolutionâ (i.e. âbecause there is a law of the land that says precisely thatâ) is the truth, but only that if it were then it would be my lightbulb. Itâs obviously (I think!) not as simple as that.
Which, in terms of my simplification, can be restated as âThe law of the land criminalises marijuana usage regardless of any lack of law against it in any stateâ. It has to be put that way because as @Kii pointed out earlier:
which, in my simplified terms is, you can make a law of the land only if the lawâs coverage is one specifically listed (presumably by the collective of states, but that doesnât really matter - this rule could have come from the lady of the lake as long as itâs there).
Iâm getting the definite impression that thereâs quite a long journey to undergo before my model can even begin to incorporate something involving a transition from one state to another in such a way as to play constructive proofs in law of the land v law of the state arguments.
Yes. Iâm finding it very difficult to convince people that I do understand this. Of itself, though, I do not believe itâs sufficient to dissolve my logical perplexity.
Cripes. I hope not. Efficiency isnât (as Iâve pointed out in an earlier response) at all my principal concern.
This is all getting a bit mad yâknow. The responses have all been fantastic and (mainly) helpful. It must be me. I need to collate this whole thing into a book and reread it to see which nugget I missed.
EDIT: I should add that my only purpose in introducing the very simple logical land/state model was to bring out - as efficiently (sorry) as possible - the nature of my perplexity to @catgrin. If you also think that, as originally described in that reply, the model was not enough to explain my perplexity then Iâd love to know why. It just seems so obvious to me why itâs perplexing and Iâd be doubly perplexed to find folk who arenât as perplexed by the state-transitioning requirement of that modelâs land-level laws.
I have no idea why youâre now talking in terms of some sort of theoretical model proceeding according to your âsimplified termsâ when the nature of US law is clearly defined by the history of the US and its actual jurisprudential framework, regardless of how this differs from whatever it is your theory is.
OK, well you did seem to be responding to me in terms of that model, since you directly quoted bits of it. And my final EDIT (which I accept you may not have seen) did explain why I was using such a thing [i.e. to explain my perplexity, not the US legal system], but âŚ
I think maybe this was addressed somewhere (long thread), but the reason crossing state lines has been criminalized by the Feds is to enable prosecution before a harmful act is committed. When the Feds. are dealing with a pedo they want to stop them from actually doing anything that will hurt a minor, while still having a case to prove that thatâs what was unrolling. Also they often have an easier time establishing solid evidence to prosecute for someone luring minors across state lines for sexual acts with surveillance data as well as nailing the perp before they actually do anything to the minor. Itâs like prosecuting transporting weapons across state lines with intent to commit a crime. They can stop someone in the middle of a criminal act before the most serious part occurs provided they have solid evidence of intent (usually based on surveillance). The fact that itâs âacross state linesâ is a historical accident to establish jurisdiction, but the point is to be able to prosecute during a crime before a victim has been harmed.
Yes. I do remember somebody mentioning this before, because it raises the âintentâ bit, which I commented on. I can even see how this would give the national officials that hook they need to take it to a national thing rather than just a âstateâ thing.
(Iâm trying to avoid the term âfederalâ [but I know somebodyâs objecting to that] because my perplexity arises from stateline crossing necessity rather than - well I neednât repeat it all again here)
You are dealing with different justice systems - the state and federal, thatâs why. US states have their own sets of laws, and often times their own constitutions, which is fine, as long as they donât contradict federal laws. Itâs pretty much that simple.
The REASON for that is probably a bit more complicated and it was built/changed/tested over time, but itâs not an historical accident. The first government created was the articles of confederation, which gave little to no power to a centralized government. When that proved inadequate for creating any kind of unity among the states, they scrapped it and tried again with the US Constitution. It provided for a balancing of powers all up and down the document - between branches of government, but also between the state and federal. By allowing the states to retain the right to legislate on anything not explicitly spelled out as federal jurisdiction in the constitution was one way to get the southern, slave centric economies on board.
Itâs important to note that itâs not merely intent. There is an act of engaging in the act of facilitating a minor traveling to meet up along with an intent of engaging in the sex. Intent is a component, but not all thatâs involved. The guy in the story nailed by the law was soliciting sex from minors on the internet and bringing them to a meeting place with a strong correspondence history to back that up. He could claim he was not really intending to engage in what he solicited, but the fact that he was soliciting sex from minors and bringing them to meet is in itself a serious enough issue. While the law might be abused if someone was merely transporting minors around for some other reason, the prosecution has to have evidence of intent to present to the grand jury for probable cause to get the case brought to trial, so itâs not easily abused. Federal prosecutors have a lot of other laws that they can and do abuse, but this isnât one of them.
