Here’s a fun hypothetical. Remember that in the US, the vast majority of criminal cases filed each year are State cases. While the Federal Government does have some criminal jurisdiction, it sees relatively few cases as most “offenses” are resolved under State or Local law and never come across the desk of a Federal judge.
As an extension to this thread of mine, suppose a US State (pick any of the 50) were to pass a law tomorrow completely abolishing the state’s criminal law code (every single criminal offense as defined in law is repealed or nullified) and criminal justice system, shutting down all jails and police departments, stripping all State and local courts of subject matter jurisdiction over criminal cases and of the power to issue incarceration, probation, or fine orders, and pardoning all convictions ever issued under State Law. Now, social order is to be maintained by private contract and/or possibly civil lawsuits. If you get a civil judgment against a thief for Unjust Enrichment and he won’t obey the judgment, then you can just put a bullet in his head or something and pray that his family won’t sue you for Wrongful Death, but nobody is going to jail or getting a criminal record because State Law does not recognize “Theft” or “Murder” as a crime anymore.
What would happen? Would such an act be respected by the Federal Government? Is there a Constitutional requirement for a state to have a criminal justice system? Would the US Federal Government just be able to step in and “take over” criminal law with the Commerce Clause and just replace all the old State and Local police departments with FBI offices and treat garden variety thefts, burglaries, and DUI’s as Federal Offenses?
The question could also be applied to other Federal systems in the world.
Yes, I know it will never happen in real life, but it’s an interesting thought experiment on what is actually required for a society to run in the greater community of jurisdictions.