Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Burden of multiple statutes

This is a very complex world getting more complex every day. Some of the older statutes that set forth crimes from an earlier era have been adjudged not to fit some of the new crimes, i.e., identity theft. So the legislature then decides to enact a new statute to cover this invention of modern society i.e. identity with all the requisite paraphernalia.

Then someone with an inventive mind figures out a new twist on that crime and the legislature is back at work. What's your alternative to all this? A statute that says, "Don't do anything bad."

People under our system have the right to know what they are charged with. And with the concept of 'lesser included offenses' this can cover a very wide range of crimes. So the modern prosecutor overcharges (multiple charges) the simplest indictment or complaint.

Then at the time of trial if the prosecutor dismisses one of the charges (which happened in one of my cases and I won the case for the defendant because of it) they may by accident dismiss the one charge that the defendant is actually guilty of.

I rankle at the complexity of modern society. I also can't do anything about it. However, I marvel at the quickness of administrative procedures with the computer at everyone's work station. Someday our DNA's will establish certain bounderies within which we'll be constrained to live. We are now living the science fiction of our grandparents.