Courses

This course will focus primarily on two broad topics in federal criminal law. The first arises from laws criminalizing fraud, bribery, and corruption in both the public and private sectors. The second relates to laws and doctrines that extend the application of federal criminal law beyond U.S. borders, which enable prosecutors and enforcement agencies to respond to transnational criminal activity such as terrorism, drug and human trafficking, computer hacking or other cybercrimes, and corporate bribery of foreign officials. We will also give some attention to constitutional law doctrines with which these topics intersect, such as limits on corruption offenses from constitutional protections for campaign finance; the scope of Congress’ power to criminalize conduct occurring in other countries; and the limits on criminal procedure rights for persons outside the United States. Additionally, we consider some procedural rules specific to these contexts, such as ways to obtain evidence, suspects or witness testimony beyond U.S. borders where federal officials, warrants, and subpoenas generally have no authority.