One of the long-term legacies of expanding the powers of federal prosecutors is that they now are able to criminalize just about everything, including legal behavior. The latest outrage is in New York City, where the feds have charged Julian P. Heicklen, a 79-year-old retired chemistry professor from Penn State University, with “jury tampering” for simply advocating jury nullification while handing out pamphlets near the federal courthouse.

Note that Heicklen never has knowingly spoken to jurors in any case, nor has he tried to contact any active jurors. The feds are arguing that since some of the people to whom he talks MIGHT someday be jurors, that amounts to “jury tampering.”

I cover the case in a recent blog post here.