Congressman Murphy wants to make home invasions a federal crime. The wave of home invasions, by my count, has now reached two in the State of Connecticut, clearly calling for a federal response. This is a stupid idea. It makes no sense, so of course it has a good chance of passing. How does making home invasion a federal crime do anything to reduce the likelihood that such crimes will occur, or increase the likelihood that these already easily caught criminals will be apprehended?
There was a time that making a federal crime out of a “home invasion” would have been seen as so obviously unconstitutional that no one would have seriously suggested it. Now, we have arrived at the point where we assume that the federal writ runs to any act, no matter that it has no obvious impact on interstate commerce or any other federal interest. The original intent was that the states would take care of ordinary criminal behavior, and that is what these “home invasions” are. Not only are they within the proper sphere of the state courts, they are more competently handled by the state courts, which are better set up to deal with them.
Murphy is making a mistake here. The federal government has better things to do than enforce state criminal law. Not only that, we are safer as a people if the federal government is forced to maintain its distance. Connecticut has had no difficulty apprehending or punishing there “home invaders”. It doesn’t need help from a U.S. Attorney who has better things to do.
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