The Crime of Causing Traffic: Can the Criminal Civil Rights Statutes Target Public Corruption?

Abstract

An unlikely statutory candidate has recently emerged to aid the federal prosecution of state and local public corruption: the criminal civil rights statutes. In the wake of newly placed limitations on other sources of criminal liability in this area, the government's reliance on these statutes may increase in the future. Given the contentious nature of the debate concerning the Justice Department's role in prosecuting both public corruption and civil rights crimes, the potential employment of this old statutory tool in a new area deserves more considerable attention.