The primary protection for this is prosecutorial discretion which is to say the DA can choose not to take such cases. Also the police have to be willing to enforce and book instances (they're usually happy to) and gubernatorial positions like the mayor or governor can command law enforcement not to enforce a specific law (which sometimes they'll obey).

This often comes up in undocumented immigrant cases in which there are communities with a lot of overstayed visas, or while cannibis was in a grey zone of being locally accepted while nationally scheduled.

It's also why tweens weren't gathered up for making a Facebook account while under thirteen years, even though that violated the CFAA, a federal crime punishable by up to 25 years. We don't really want to put little girls in federal prison.

This is a problem when some official would like you to disappear into the penal system, say because he covets your land or your livestock or your spouse. Then your chastity cage may become a liability.

[–] Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works 24 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Prosecutorial discretion is a big problem really. It's what allows laws to be applied unequally, why black people are prosecuted way more than white people, and, as you mention, provides justification to jail anyone at any time because you ARE violating some law every day, almost certainly.

If prosecutorial discretion did not exist, if agents of the law were required to prosecute all crimes to the fullest extent of the law, it would require the entire legal system to be restructured in a more precise way, and would have far less room for racial, sexual, and class discrimination as well as far less capacity to be weaponized against enemies of those in power.

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well that'd require (among other things) a simplified set of laws, clear structure, with the goal of adhering to the spirit, not the letter of the law. The result can be expected to be faster trials, reduced lawyer workloads, and all the reduction in costs that come with that.

Pssh, who wants that?

[–] Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'd go the other way, adhering very strictly to the letter of the law without the tiniest bit of wiggle room or interpretation of anything as nebulous as the 'spirit' of the law.

Trouble being that natural languages that people use to converse are ill suited for that level of precision and detail. I've thought that perhaps a constructed language, something between a language and programming code may be a better way to write laws.

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Output still would have to be interpreted by us, if I'm understanding you correctly. Laws become innumerable, which is already a problem; how many paralegals do professional lawyers actually need at this point?

Alabama has a law on the books banning dominoes on Sundays. Every state and even the federal govt has laws in place which can be abused, even if only until a judge prevails. "One can beat the rap, but not the ride"... How about beating the ride, too?

[–] Eiim@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 months ago

"required to prosecute all crimes to the fullest extent of the law", taken literally, requires prosecutors to prosecute everyone for every crime all the time. After all, you don't know what might turn up in discovery, anything could potentially have happened! Obviously, there has to be some judgement call made, where there's just not enough evidence to prosecute me for drunk driving even though I stopped an inch past the stop sign. Ultimately, that's just prosecutorial discretion again, and while it could be reformed and limited somewhat, it will always exist and be abused.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The sort of thing well-educated white liberals believe because they learned it in university, and never found themselves on the wrong side of the law.

[–] koper@feddit.nl 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Did you read the entire comment?

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago

Yes? I'm not arguing with them.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Which part?

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That prosecutorial discretion is a good idea. I'm not implying that you do.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 months ago

Oh yeah. It's horrible, and puts way too much power in the hands of DAs and AGs. Also it lets our legislators create lazy law on the assumption the right people will be spared, and the wrong people (e.g. poor and minorities) will become prison fodder.

I'd rather we had iron-clad difficult to re-interpret laws for which enforcement was obligatory. Then every miscarriage of justice (e.g. tweens in juvie for violating social media TOS) would be a call to fix the problem with aggressive legislative revision.

Notes for the next iteration of the United States, I suppose.