No Price Too High: Victimless Crimes and the Ninth Amendment

Hardaway argues the criminalization of victimless crimes violates the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and creates enormous public policy problems in the society. He contends that the Ninth Amendment adjudication model and the concepts of self-determination and the harm principle are the standards to which privacy issues should be litigated. Hardaway contends that privacy issues should be litigated under the standards of the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution adjudication model, concepts of self-determination, and the harm principle. The Ninth Amendment follows the true beliefs of the founding fathers and their adherence to Natural Law, autonomy, liberty, and the right to privacy. This model needs to replace the substantive due process analysis in the realm of personal autonomy issues used by the courts. The recognition of self-determination and the harm principle will provide individuals with the constitutional protection of rights the founding fathers thought to be imperative to an ordered liberty. By seeking to explain American policy on victimless crimes of which drug use is one, Hardaway seeks to stir a vigorous constitutional debate. As he shows, prostitution and gambling raise similar issues, and he questions whether criminalization serves the interests of society. In examining drug use, prostitution, and gambling, Hardaway compares the policy rationales for each of these societal problems with a view towards creating a general theory of decriminalization. An important analysis for scholars, students, researchers, and public policy makers involved with constitutional law and contemporary criminal law concerns.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Introduction: Defining the Victimless Crime The Lessons of Prohibition Prostitution: The History of Criminalization Gambling: The History of Criminalization Drugs: The History of Criminalization Victimless Crimes and the 9th Amendment Bibliography Index

About the Author :
ROBERT M. HARDAWAY is Professor of Law at the University of Denver College of Law. He has taught law and public policy at the University of California Hastings Law School and The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., and also served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the United States Navy. His earlier nine book-length publications include America Goes to School: Law, Reform and Crisis in Public Education (Praeger, 1995) and The Electoral College and the Constitution (Praeger, 1994).

Review :
?Professor Robert Hardaway provides an interesting and provocative assessment of these so-called victimless crimes and our societal battles to restrict them....NO PRICE TOO HIGH is interesting reading with a powerfully-presented and strongly-argued thesis. It is likely to provoke useful discussion about important issues.?-Law and Politics Book Review ?Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students.?-Choice "Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students."-Choice "Professor Robert Hardaway provides an interesting and provocative assessment of these so-called victimless crimes and our societal battles to restrict them....NO PRICE TOO HIGH is interesting reading with a powerfully-presented and strongly-argued thesis. It is likely to provoke useful discussion about important issues."-Law and Politics Book Review