As demonstrated in Sekhar v.United States,the case in the text,courts carefully scrutinize,and narrowly construe criminal statutes in an effort to:

A) make certain whether a defendant's acts were prohibited by the legislature.
B) understand why the legislature banned certain acts.
C) determine the proper sentence.
D) rewrite the statutes for clarity.

Courts carefully scrutinize,and narrowly construe,criminal statutes in an effort to make certain that they sweep in only those behaviors specifically prohibited by the relevant legislature.In Sekhar v.United States,the U.S.Supreme Court conducts such an examination of the Hobbs Act in order to determine whether the defendant's actions constituted extortion in violation of that federal statute.