The specificity of statutes is important when the statute provides for criminal penalties. This Essay examines a cryptocurrency fraud prosecution, looking at the issue of whether cryptocurrency is included in securities fraud statutes. It also looks at proposed legislation that would omit cryptocurrency as a security, but then calls for enhanced regulation and tax relief. Additional clarification is needed to ascertain whether cryptocurrency fraud can be prosecuted under current securities fraud statutes. This Essay questions such prosecutions when the location of key definitions rest within agency regulations. Although specificity may not be needed to account for every imaginable type of fraud, when it comes to cryptocurrencies, Congress needs to provide more direction.

This Essay examines the events that led to Dean Emeritus Bruce Jacob being the recipient of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ (NACDL) prestigious Champion of Indigent Defense Award. Dean Jacob represented the State of Florida in the Gideon v. Wainwright case, arguing for adherence to Betts v. Brady which did not provide the right to counsel for indigent state defendants absent special circumstances. After arguing Gideon in the Supreme Court, he spent much of his career advocating for indigent defendants’ rights to effective assistance of counsel. Although some may find an irony in these two roles, this Essay notes the symmetry when looking at Dean Jacob as a true “minister of justice.”