August 11, 2021
For armchair prognosticators on the criminal law proclivities of the newly constituted Supreme Court, Justice Barrett’s majority opinion in Van Buren v. United States may provide some clues. In narrowly construing a provision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 to avoid criminalizing “a breathtaking amount of commonplace computer activity,” the opinion is likely to be welcomed by those concerned about overcriminalization. Only time will tell, but Van Buren suggests that we can expect the Court’s tendency to narrowly interpret statutes to avoid criminalizing large swaths of trivial conduct to continue. We explore this issue in our latest Article: "Van Buren v. U.S. -- A Window Into Criminal Law in the Coney Barrett Era?"