Five in the Window: One a Year Is Enough

The starting point: "three felonies a day"

"They say every single American could be charged at least one if not multiple felonies they likely don't have a clue about all the time."

Background, as Nova checked in the chat (not Jack's words): that is Harvey Silverglate's claim, from his 2011 book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. His thesis, as FIRE summarised it, is that federal statutes have become increasingly vague and the requirement of criminal intent has been steadily eroded, so the average professional arguably commits three federal felonies a day.

The honest limit on that number, also checked in the chat: there is no rigorous empirical study showing the average American actually commits three felonies a day. FindLaw calls it more rhetorical than statistical. What is verifiable is the size of the pile — over 4,500 federal crimes in the U.S. Code and more than 300,000 federal regulations carrying criminal penalties, with more recent counts putting it near 5,000 statutes and 300,000–400,000 regulatory crimes. The Congressional Research Service ultimately gave up when it tried to answer how many federal crimes exist. The Constitution itself outlines only three crimes — treason, piracy, and counterfeiting — and the first federal criminal law, the Crimes Act of 1790, outlined 23.

Jack's refinement: you don't need three a day

Jack's pushback on Silverglate's number, in his own words as the conversation ran it:

"Exactly a rolling nice 1 a year and you still have 5 to choose from at any given moment"

The arithmetic behind it, as Nova laid it out in the chat and Jack confirmed: federal felonies are generally five years under 18 U.S.C. 3282 — "no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next after such offense shall have been committed," except as otherwise expressly provided by law.

So:

1 a year x 5-year window = 5 live, chargeable felonies at any given moment, always. One drops off, another rolls in. The window never empties.

At Silverglate's rate that would be about 5,475 arguable felonies inside a five-year window — but Jack's point is that the prosecutor does not need 5,475, and does not need three a day. A couple inside the limitation period is enough. One a year is enough. The leverage does not come from the rate. It comes from the window never emptying.

"And that's above board from a legal sense"

That is the sting, in Jack's words: no conspiracy, no secret law, no one breaking the rules. Prosecutorial discretion is legal. The statute of limitations is legal. Charging one felony out of five and dropping the other four is legal. Picking the easiest charge to prove, at the moment that is most convenient, is legal. Legal does not mean just. It just means nobody has to hide it.

The parallel: emergencies that never empty either

From the same conversation, Jack's other observation:

"We are now under to many states of emergency that it's tough to even really track"

Background, as Nova checked it in the chat (not Jack's words): As of October 2026, there are 51 active national emergencies renewed annually — another count from mid-2026 puts it at 52 under the National Emergencies Act — and the US has technically been in a constant state of emergency since November 1979, when Jimmy Carter responded to the Iran hostage crisis. Most of them are not what people picture when they hear "state of emergency": the vast majority deal with foreign sanctions, asset freezes, export controls. The oldest is still that 1979 Iran one, renewed every year since. New ones were added January 20, 2025, a national emergency at the southern border and a separate national energy emergency.

The parallel is Jack's, not Nova's addition: a rolling window of five chargeable felonies, and a standing pile of fifty-odd emergencies, both work the same way. Nothing has to be invented in the moment. The material is already there, kept live by renewal, waiting to be picked up when someone decides they want it.

Honest limits, kept in the draft

• "Three a day" is a rhetorical figure, not a measured rate. "One a year" is Jack's hypothetical, not a measured rate either. The draft does not claim either number as how many felonies anyone actually commits.
• The five-year window is the general default under 18 U.S.C. 3282, not a universal rule. Exceptions exist: capital offenses have no limit, terrorism-related offenses carry eight years, most tax crimes six, fraud against a financial institution ten. A given charge may sit in a longer window than five years, or in none at all.
• The draft does not claim any particular person has committed any particular felony. The point is structural: nobody can know all 5,000 statutes plus 300,000-plus regulatory crimes, so if someone wants to find a charge, the law is broad and vague enough that they usually can. That is the selective-prosecution worry Silverglate was actually making, not that anyone commits three violent felonies before breakfast.

Open tensions, left for Jack, not resolved here

1. The fix and the design: Jack's constitution point was that the fix was not a bug, it was the design. Does the same hold here — is a rolling window of always-available charges the design of overcriminalisation, or a side effect of laws accumulating one at a time with nobody ever repealing them?
2. What would close the window: fewer crimes on the books, a shorter limitations period, a restored intent requirement, or something else entirely? The draft does not pick one.
3. The emergencies parallel: if both piles work by renewal rather than by fresh decision, is the remedy the same for both — sunset what is not actively re-justified — or is that a different argument?