{"id":2901,"date":"2026-08-21T17:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T21:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/?page_id=2901"},"modified":"2026-08-21T17:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T21:02:15","slug":"second-thoughts-about-first-principles-a-critique-of-the-contemporary-conception-of-the-principle-of-legality","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print\/volume-24-issue-1-winter-2026\/second-thoughts-about-first-principles-a-critique-of-the-contemporary-conception-of-the-principle-of-legality\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Thoughts About First Principles: A Critique of the Contemporary Conception of the Principle of Legality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The principle of legality is currently understood as a ban on criminal punishment unless one\u2019s conduct violates a criminal statute\u2014that is, as a ban on common law crime. Because the principle prevents judges from imposing criminal punishment at their whim, it is seen as an obvious good. This article argues that this is far from obvious. I show that the common law of crime was, in fact, much more limited than the current regime of statutory crime, and that the loosening of the restrictions imposed by the common law is partially responsible for the contemporary crisis of overcriminalization.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2026\/08\/24.1-Hasnas.pdf\">Continue reading Second Thoughts About First Principles: A Critique of the Contemporary Conception of the Principle of Legality<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The principle of legality is currently understood as a ban on criminal punishment unless one\u2019s conduct violates a criminal statute\u2014that is, as a ban on common law crime. Because the principle prevents judges from imposing criminal punishment at their whim, it is seen as an obvious good. This article argues that this is far from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"parent":2883,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2901","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2902,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2901\/revisions\/2902"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}