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Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse

There’s an important legal principle that says “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” That’s right: you can’t defend your actions by arguing you didn’t know they were illegal, even if you honestly did not realize you were breaking the law.

essay about ignorance of the law excuses no one

Knowing the Law

Under our legal system, Canadians are expected to know what the law says. But this doesn’t mean we all have to be legal experts. It’s not realistic for everyone to memorize all the laws! Not even lawyers know all this information.

The rule “ignorance of the law is no excuse” really means that people can’t defend their actions by claiming they didn’t know the law.

It would be too easy for people to break a contract, ignore a neighbour’s right to privacy or sell drugs if they could get away with it by arguing they didn’t know it was against the law.

However, even when people have good intentions, they sometimes break the law because they don’t realize they are doing something illegal. This can happen because our legal system is complicated. When people have good intentions, judges can sometimes be understanding. Judges are less understanding when the actions involve certain kinds of crimes.

Be Well-Informed

So, you can see how important it is to make sure to respect the law. To get information about the law, there are several things you can do:

contact a lawyer or notary
consult legal information websites, such as Éducaloi’s
use services offered by the Quebec government, such as the websites of Services Québec and Justice Québec

It’s never too soon to learn about your legal rights and responsibilities.

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Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse: What Does “Ignorantia Juris non Excusat” Mean in Legal Terms?

By legalfix, posted: december 3, 2023.

The legal maxim "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is encapsulated in the Latin phrase, " ignorantia juris non excusat ." It signifies a fundamental principle in many legal systems whereby individuals are presumed to know and understand the laws of the jurisdiction in which they live or act, and they cannot escape liability for violating the law merely by claiming they were unaware of its content.

Rationale and Implications:

Public Order and Consistency: If every person could evade legal consequences by claiming ignorance, it would undermine the rule of law and create an untenable legal system. Allowing ignorance as a defense would make law enforcement erratic and unpredictable.

Encourages the Public to Learn the Law: The maxim underscores the idea that people have a responsibility to be aware of the laws that regulate society and their conduct. It incentivizes individuals to familiarize themselves with relevant laws before undertaking actions.

Practical Necessity: Given the vast number of laws, even legal professionals must frequently look up and study specific legal provisions. It would be impractical to ascertain genuinely whether an individual knew a particular law before violating it.

Protects Against Deliberate Ignorance: Without this maxim, individuals might be motivated not to educate themselves about the law, hoping that ignorance would shield them from liability.

Nuances and Caveats to Consider:

Mistake of Fact vs. Mistake of Law: While ignorance of the law is generally not an excuse, a genuine mistake of fact (an error about a factual matter, such as believing one's actions were legally permissible based on incorrect factual information) can sometimes be a defense. Scienter, also known as mens rea, is a fundamental concept in criminal law, representing the mental state or intent of a person who commits a crime. It's the difference between someone knowingly committing an act versus doing so accidentally or without awareness. This principle is crucial because it distinguishes between those who deliberately break the law and those who do so unwittingly. Unlike mere ignorance of the law, which is not typically a defense in criminal cases, scienter focuses on the perpetrator's actual knowledge and intent at the time of the crime. Ignorance of the law refers to a lack of knowledge about the legal wrongfulness of an act, but it doesn't negate the intentional aspect required for certain crimes. For instance, a person can be aware that their actions are illegal (thus having scienter) but still claim ignorance of the specific law they are breaking. In essence, while ignorance of the law excuses no one, scienter is necessary to establish the level of culpability and is a key element in determining the severity of punishment in criminal proceedings.

Complexity of Modern Law: In today's complex legal environment, the maxim can seem overly harsh. No one can know every law, given the intricate web of statutes, regulations, and ordinances in modern societies.

Exceptions in Some Jurisdictions: While the maxim is a foundational principle in many jurisdictions, there are exceptions. Some legal systems or specific laws might take into account a person's knowledge or understanding of the law when assessing culpability.

In summary, " ignorantia juris non excusat " emphasizes the societal expectation that individuals adhere to the law whether they know it or not. It stresses the importance of the rule of law in maintaining order and fairness in society.

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Ignorance of the Law Is Not an Excuse

Apr 23, 2018 | The Informed Citizen

If you are unaware you are breaking a law, should you be held accountable? In general, the law says yes.

The legal principle of ignorantia juris non excusat (ignorance of the law excuses not) or ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of law excuses no one) is derived from Roman law. Essentially, it means that if someone breaks the law, he or she is still liable even if they had no knowledge of the law being broken.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.”

Today, there are literally tens of thousands of laws on the books, both federally and on a state level. Is it reasonable to assume that everyone knows every law?

According to Tiffany N. Basciano, associate director of the International Law and Organizations Program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, it is reasonable to assume that people are familiar with generally recognized wrongs, such as violence and dishonesty, as well as community standards based on their lived experience.

“Is it reasonable to expect people to know every law on the books? No. But generally knowledge of the law is not required,” Basciano says.

The government has a duty to appropriately disseminate new laws to the public and making them publicly accessible.

“Knowledge of all properly disseminated laws can be attributed to everyone,” she says. “If knowledge of the law were required, criminal and civil defendants alike would routinely plead ignorance of the law as a defense, which would undermine the concept and administration of justice.”

Basciano also points out that in criminal law, a person cannot be charged for any conduct that was not prohibited at the time of the act. In other words, a law cannot be passed retroactively criminalizing an act.

“This idea reflects the legal principle of nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without law),” Basciano says. “There is also a doctrine called the rule of lenity , which provides that courts should interpret ambiguous criminal laws in favor of the defendant.”

U.S. Supreme Court Rulings

Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has addressed the issue of ignorance of the law. The 1833 case of Barlow v. United States involved the seizure of 85 barrels of sugar, which Joseph Barlow was attempting to export under the false denomination of refined sugar. Barlow contended that the sugar was not entered by false denomination and he did not intend to defraud the revenue. The Court did not believe that Barlow had no knowledge that the sugar he was attempting to export was unrefined and said the case presented a broader question of “whether a mistake of law will excuse a forfeiture in cases of this description. We think it will not. The whole course of jurisprudence , criminal as well as civil, of the common law points to a different conclusion. It is a common maxim familiar to all minds that ignorance of the law will not excuse any person, either civilly or criminally, and it results from the extreme difficulty of ascertaining what is the bona fide interpretation of the party, and the extreme danger of allowing such excuses to be set up for illegal acts, to the detriment of the public.”

More recently, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich LPA. That case involved the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The plaintiff in the case, Karen Jerman sued a law firm that instituted foreclosure proceedings against her property in error. The law firm acknowledged that it violated the FDCPA, but that its error was a bona fide error. An Ohio district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sided with the law firm. The Appeals Court held that the FDCPA error defense applies to mistakes of law.

The question for the U.S. Supreme Court was to decide whether a debt collector’s mistake in law qualifies as a bona fide error defense. The Court ruled it did not and that such an error can never be “not intentional.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor used the same language—“ignorance of the law will not excuse any person, either civilly or criminally” as in the Barlow case.

Some Exceptions

The U.S. Supreme Court has made some exceptions to the “ignorance is not an excuse” defense. In the 1957 case of Lambert v. California , the Court ruled that the defendant’s (Lambert) failure to register as a felon after moving to Los Angeles was a “wholly passive act.” Lambert, who had been previously convicted of forgery, was unaware of an ordinance requiring that she register as a felon if in the city of Los Angeles for more than five days. Because she was not allowed to use ignorance of the law as a defense, she was convicted, fined $250 and sentenced to three years probation. Lambert could have faced as much as six months in jail for every day in the city after exceeding the five-day limit. The Court reversed the conviction. Justice William Douglas wrote in the Court’s majority opinion, “Where a person did not know of the duty to register and where there was no proof of the probability of such knowledge, he may not be convicted consistent with due process .”

Another exception the U.S. Supreme Court has carved out with regard to ignorance of the law deals with the tax code. In the 1991 case of Cheek v. United States , the Court said: “The general rule that ignorance of the law or a mistake of law is no defense to criminal prosecution is deeply rooted in the American legal system…The proliferation of statutes and regulations has sometimes made it difficult for the average citizen to know and comprehend the extent of the duties and obligations imposed by the tax laws. Congress has accordingly softened the impact of the common law presumption by making specific intent to violate the law an element of certain federal criminal tax offenses. Thus, the Court almost 60 years ago interpreted the statutory term ‘willfully’ as used in the federal criminal tax statutes as carving out an exception to the traditional rule. This special treatment of criminal tax offenses is largely due to the complexity of the tax laws. ”

While “ignorance of the law” is not an excuse, Basciano says in some cases, it may be a mitigating circumstance when considering sentencing in a criminal case, or reduced damages in a civil case.

“Legislators could write both criminal and civil law statutes in a way that requires a ‘willful’ violation of the law, making knowledge of the law relevant to liability,” she says.

Discussion Questions 1. What is the difference between a law and a rule? What happens if you claim ignorance of a rule? What are some rules that exist that you believe should be law? 2. Think of a time when you broke a rule that you were not aware of. How did you feel? How was the situation resolved? 3. The article speaks of some exceptions where people claimed ignorance and were not convicted of the crime. Think of some other examples where a person might commit a crime unknowingly and should not be punished. Explain your reasoning.

Glossary Words: ambiguous : unclear. bona fide : sincerely; without intention to deceive. due process : legal safeguards that a citizen may claim if a state or court makes a decision that could affect any right of that citizen. jurisprudence : the philosophy of law or a legal system. lenity : kindness. mitigating circumstances : factors that may lessen accountability, but do not excuse a defendant from guilt. proliferation : rapid increase in number. reverse : to void or change a decision by a lower court. retroactively : with effect from a date in the past. statute : a written law passed by a legislative body.

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Supreme Court to CountryWide: Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse

Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorantia legis neminem excusat .

One case decided by the Supreme Court this week had a decidedly everyman theme to it. First there is the maxim the majority, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, uses to define its opinion: "ignorance of the law is no excuse." Justice Sotomayor puts it in slightly more formal terms, but that is the basis for the majority holding that debt collectors may be sued for wrongly pursuing debt collection , even if their case is based on a bona fide legal error.

The second element that might sound like a bit of good luck for the little guy, is the underlying case. The Wall Street Journal reports that in the case of Jerman v. Carlisle , the homeowner, Karen Jerman had foreclosure proceedings initiated against her by one of everyone's favorite companies, CountryWide Home Loans, Inc. Jerman disputed that the debt existed and Countrywide later had to acknowledge that was indeed the case. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich, the law firm representing ContryWide, withdrew their suit. Jerman then sued the firm for violating federal debt collection practices when they told her they would assume her debt was valid unless she disputed it in writing.

According to the Journal , Justice Sotomayor disagreed with the lower court who ruled in favor of the law firm because they had made a legal mistake. "We have long recognized the common maxim, familiar to all minds, that ignorance of the law will not excuse any person, either civilly or criminally." The majority noted that Congress did not appear to write in an exception to the law for anyone who makes an error.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by Justice Samuel Alito dissented. They argued the decision would open the floodgates of litigation by debtors against any debt-collector who makes an error. Justice Sotomayor rejected that criticism. "We do not foresee that our decision today will place unmanageable burdens on lawyers practicing in the debt collection industry," she wrote.

Little guy 1, big bad debt-collectors, 0. For once.

Related Resources:

Debt Collectors Can Face Lawsuits for Mistakes, Court Says (Wall Street Journal)
Opinion, Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich, et al. (pdf, SupremeCourt.gov)
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FindLaw)
Credit - Debt Collection (FindLaw)
Collections and Consumer Rights FAQ (provided by Boyle, Neblett & Wenger)
Creditors' Legal Remedies to Help Collect Debts (provided by Law Offices of Barry Levinson )

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Ignorantia legis non excusat . ēgnōran´tē-a lā´gēsnā´mēnām āks-kū´sat . ignōrân´šu le´jis ne´minem eks-kyū´zât.

Aaron x. fellmeth,, maurice horwitz.

“Ignorance of the law excuses no one.” A doctrine requiring all persons to know their legal duties, such that actual ignorance of these duties will not prevent a finding of liability for their violation. Bone fide ignorance of relevant facts, in contrast, may excuse a failure to fulfill a legal duty that should have been fulfilled had those facts been known. Alternative phrases are ... ...

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A Critical Analysis of the Principle of Ignorance of the Law is Not An Excuse and Possible Legal Defences

by Bridget Edokwe · September 12, 2021

By UMEH JUSTICE FRANK

INTRODUCTION

The rule “Ignorance of the law is no excuse ” literally means that people cannot defend their actions by claiming they did not know the law, even if you honestly did not realize that you were braking the law. Ignorance of the law occurs when one has full knowledge of law but is either ignorant of the legal effect of those laws or retains an erroneous belief as to their legal effect. Pursuant to section 22 of the Criminal Code Act provides that Ignorance of the law does not provide an excuse for an act or omission which should have constituted an offence, unless knowledge of the law is an express element of the offence. The mere fact that one honestly and reasonably but mistakenly believes that an act or omission is not illegal, cannot be a defense unless the knowledge of the law is ascertained.

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The maxim is of ancient origin, the Roman law knew it as Ignorantia Juris non excusat and it became firmly entrenched in the common law as regards criminal law, there are two distinctions which is IGNORANTIA FACTI EXCUSAT and IGNORANTIA JURIS NON EXCUSAT.

The General rule of law is that “Ignorance of the law is not an excuse” with the maxim as “IGNORANTIA LEGIS NON EXCUSAT” or “IGNORANTIA LEGIS NEMINEM EXCUSAT”. It is pertinent enough to state that, Ignorance of the law excuses no one. If defendants are allowed to plead mistake, or that he was not aware of the existence of the law he has contravened, the whole administration of law, order and justice would come to a standstill as everyone will plead mistake as a defense to every legal action. Nobody would be liable or guilty. People would just commit any breach of the law and simply plead the defense of mistake or ignorance.

Therefore, for easy administration of law and justice, the law does not allow defendants to raise the plea of mistake or ignorance of the law, unless it is allowed by the specific law in question. The general rule in application, posits that every individual is deemed to know the law. Accordingly, even if the consequences of an act were not fully appreciated, a person is presumed to know the law, and to have intended the probable or the natural consequences of his acts. In the nutshell, everybody is presumed to have a full knowledge of what the law stipulates. The question in contest is how anyone can know all the laws that are passed from time to time in the Nigerian approach; the doctrine assumes that the law in question has been properly promulgated, published and distributed, for example, by being printed in a government gazette. In order that a law obtains a binding force which is proper to a law, it must be applied to the men who have to be ruled by it. Such application is made by their being given notice by promulgation. A law can bind only, if it is reasonably possible for those whom it applies to acquire knowledge of it in order to observe it, even if actual knowledge of the law is absent for a particular individual. A secret law is known law.

However, it is usually said that “to every general rule, there is an exception,” the question to be asked is this- IS THERE ANY EXCEPTION TO THAT GENERAL RULE THAT IGNORANCE OF THE LAW EXCUSES NO ONE ? In the Criminal Code, it is provided that a person may successfully plead ignorance of law, if a law creating an offence specifically requires knowledge of law as an element to be proved in order to find a violator of such particular offence guilty. This means that unless the prosecutor in such instance is able to prove that a law breaker knows that his action or omission is against the law, the law breaker will be set free based on certain reasonable conditions. Similarly, in the United States given the high volume of tax laws, Citizens who violate some of these laws may go unpunished if they are able to prove they lack knowledge of the existence of law which they allegedly break.

Ignorance of the law can be a defense that the criminal defendant misunderstood or was ignorant of the law as it existed at the time. Most people are familiar with the legal principle that IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NOT EXCUSE. This age-old rule prevents individuals from avoiding prosecution by claiming that they did not know their conduct was illegal. But Ignorance can, under certain limited circumstances, provide a viable defense to a criminal charge.

In Criminal law, although ignorance may not clear a defendant of guilt, it can be a consideration in sentencing, particularly when the law is unclear or a defendant sort advice from a law enforcement or regulatory official. For example, in one Canadian case, a person was charged with being in possession of gambling devices after they had been advised by custom officials that it was legal to import such devices into Canada. Although the defendant was convicted, the sentence was an absolute discharge.

In addition, there were particularly the days before satellite communication and cellular phones, persons who could genuinely be ignorant of the law due to distance or isolation, for example in a case in British Columbia, a pair of hunters were acquitted of game offences, where the law was changed during the period they were in the wilderness hunting. In reaching this decision, the court refused to follow an early English Law case, in which a sea man on a clipper before the invention of the radio was convicted even though the law have being changed while he was on sea.

The onus is generally placed on individuals to be aware of the laws of their state or community and thus this defense only applies in very limited circumstances. In view of the above, ignorance of the law can be used specifically as defense in four limited circumstances:

When the law has not been published.
When the defendant relied upon a law or statute that was later overturned or deemed unconstitutional.
When the defendant relied upon a judicial decision that was later overruled.
When the defendant relied upon an interpretation by an applicable official.

In view of the defenses in respect to IGNORANCE OF THE LAW, the following cases are spelt out for better understanding. In Ogbu v R (1959) NRLR 22at 24-25 (F.S.C) , it was held that “one of the accused said at his trial that he did not know that it was contrary to law to pay a bribe in order to induce the other accused to appoint him as village headman and therefore tax collector. (The mental element of the offense charged being that he should have paid the bribe “corruptly”). The trial judge accepted the story and acquitted him.

On Appeal by the other accused, although the Federal Supreme Court had no power to convict the first accused, they remarked (Obiter)………………. We are not at present satisfied that the learned judge was right in law in acquitting Utachia Okobi on those findings and that if the matter ever fail to be decided by this court, we should require cogent argument to convince us on a charge involving doing some acts “Corruptly”,.

Ignorance of the law is a defense to a person who had intent of a kind which the law regards as corrupt.

ON THE SUBJECT MATTER, The Supreme Court of Nigeria held that:

It is an established principle of criminal law that, an honest and reasonable belief in the existence of circumstances, which if true, would make the act for which the accused is charged an innocent act, has always been held to be a good defense. This is because of the state of his or her mind at the time of the commission or omission of the act which must not be only honest but must also be reasonable in the circumstances.

The above illustration was clearly spelt out in the facts and decision of THE STATE v. Squadron Leader S.I Olatunji (2003) LPELR- 3227 (SC). This piece would enable us to understand the application of defenses in IGNORANTIA LEGIS NON EXCUSAT.

Another analysis shows in the decision of the Supreme Court per Pats Acholonu JSC (as he then was), held that:

“It is the law that where an accused acted under an honest and reasonable belief in a given state of situation which if true would have justified the act, he may set up such a credible defense…”

This analogy was stated in the case of Osaremwindam Aiguokhian v. The State (2004) LPELR-269 (SC).

EXCEPTIONS TO THE DEFENCE OF THE IGNORANCE OF THE LAW

S. 260 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE , states that

“ The person who executes the warrant to arrest or detain another person shall not be guilty if he does not know that the warrant or sentence was in fact passed or issued without authority.”

S.258 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE, states that

“ This is to the effect that the person who executes or assists in executing a warrant or process issued by any court or judicial person or persons is not criminally responsible for any act done, notwithstanding that the court, judicial officer or person who authorized same had no authority to direct as such, if in such execution, the person acted in good faith and in the belief that the sentence, warrant or process was that of a court, judicial officer or other person having authority”.

S.30 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE,

“ A person under the age of 7 years is presumed not criminally responsible for an act or omission and that a person under the age of 12 years is not criminally responsible for an act or omission, unless it is proved that, at the time of doing the act or making the omission, he had capacity to know that he ought not to do the act or make the omission .

A judicial officer who acts in excess of judicial authority is not criminally responsible for the act or omission, where the act done or omitted to be done relates to the exercise of his judicial function.
Subsidiary Legislation is binding and has general application only after publication, in as much there is no such publication, Ignorance is an excuse.

Ignorance of the law excuses no man. Not that all men know the law, but because it is an excuse every man would plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.Ignorance of the law can be used as a defence in some limited circumstances, when the act is done without knowledge of the law. It can also be used as a defense in criminal responsibility, in such that the offender must take care to show that he did not make himself cognizance with the law.

– CRIMINAL LAW BY OKONKWO AND NAISH (2 ND Edition).

– LEARNING THE LAW BY KEHINDE ADEGBITE

– CRIMINAL CODE ACT ( Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990)

– PENAL CODE ACT ( Laws of the Federation of Nigeria)

– Duhaime, Lloyd, LEGAL DEFINITION OF IGNORANTIA JURIS NON EXCUSAT

– Law Pavillion

– English Jurist John Seldon (1584-1654) in his book “Table Talk”.

Respectively,

UMEH JUSTICE FRANK

He is currently a Final Year Law student of the University of Abuja. He has interest in Criminal Law, International Law, International Trade and Investment Law and Intellectual Property Law. He can be reached on justice.umeh2016@uniabuja.edu.ng

The cost of the book is Seven Thousand Naira (N7,000) only. Call 08037667945 OR 08028636615 ; or Email: princetonedu2012@yahoo.com ; bookpublishing2017@gmail.com; princetonpub.com to get your copy.

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When is Ignorance of the Law an Excuse?

An ancient maxim of the law is ignorantia juris non excusat , or ignorance of the law does not excuse. Put another way, it is presumed that the public knows the laws, and a defense of ignorance is typically not allowed. This principle is at the heart of the recent decision by the state supreme court in State v. Miller , ___ N.C. ___, (June 9, 2017).

Miller was convicted of the relatively new crime of possessing a pseudoephedrine product after having been convicted of a methamphetamine-related offense. The offense is found at G.S. 90-95(d1)(1)(c), part of a subsection prohibiting possession of precursor chemicals, and is a Class H felony. That prohibition became effective Dec. 1, 2013, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date. In effect, it bans anyone with a meth-related conviction from possessing pseudoephedrine, a common decongestant medicine (and meth ingredient). Around five weeks after the effective date, Miller was charged with violating it after purchasing allergy medicine containing the substance. Defense counsel filed a motion to dismiss on grounds that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to Miller. The trial court denied the motion and Miller was convicted at trial.

Court of Appeals decision

On appeal, the court of appeals unanimously reversed. They first rejected the defendant’s mens rea argument-that is, that the statute was unconstitutional because it lacked an element of intent. The court found that the statute was designed to be a strict liability offense, and declined to add an element of intent where the legislature had chosen not to include it in the language of the statute.

The court of appeals went on to hold, however, that the lack of notice to Miller that his conduct was illegal was a due process violation under Lambert v. California , 355 U.S. 225 (1957). Lambert is a seminal case on the requirement of fair notice under the Due Process Clause. The Court in Lambert struck down an ordinance that required felons to register with the police department within five days of arriving in Los Angeles. Finding that there was no evidence that the defendant was aware of the requirement to register, the conviction could not stand, as due process required that the defendant have notice of the crime at issue. The Lambert decision explicitly recognized this fair notice requirement as an exception to the general rule that ignorance of the law is no defense. Relying on Lambert , the court of appeals in Miller concluded, “The absence of any notice to Miller that he was subject to serious criminal penalties for an act that is legal for most people, most convicted felons, and indeed, Miller himself only a few weeks previously, renders the new subsection unconstitutional as applied to him.” State v. Miller , ___ N.C. App. ___, 783 S.E.2d 512 (2016).

The court’s reasoning, in part, was that other regulations pertaining to pseudoephedrine are required to be posted where the substance is sold, giving notice of what is required for a lawful sale of the drug. G.S. 90-113.54 (2012). For instance, pseudoephedrine is subject to amount-purchase limits, and purchases are logged into a national database (among other requirements). Given that these related pseudoephedrine regulations were posted in a way to ensure reasonable notice, and that Miller followed those procedures for his purchase, it could not be assumed that Miller was aware of the change in the law, or even had reason to inquire about any changes in the law. Though not explicitly mentioned in the decision, Miller was on probation at the time, and the probation officer neither knew about this change in the law nor advised Miller about it. Brief of Defendant-Appellant at 5, State v. Miller , 783 S.E.2d 512 (2016). Furthermore, the pharmacist that sold the substance to Miller thought the transaction was permissible as well. Slip op. at 20. Because this was a strict liability offense applying to only a specific class of felons for what was otherwise (and formerly) legal conduct, some fair warning was required; without it, the statute violated due process. Slip op. at 27. Thus, according to the court of appeals, ignorance was a defense for Miller under these particular circumstances.

Supreme Court decision

Relying on Bryant v. North Carolina , 359 N.C. 554 (2005), a divided Supreme Court reversed. Bryant involved a Lambert challenge to the state’s failure to register as a sex offender statute. Bryant was ordered to register for life in South Carolina, but upon moving to North Carolina, failed to register and claimed ignorance of the requirement to register in this state. The court there rejected his challenge and found that the circumstances in his case were such that a reasonable person in his shoes would know to at least inquire as to a duty to register.

The Miller majority found that, under Lambert and Bryant , where the defendant’s conduct is not “wholly passive”, the Lambert exception did not apply. “Since defendant’s conviction rests upon his own active conduct rather than a ‘wholly passive’ failure to act, there is no need for us to determine whether the surrounding circumstances should have put the defendant on notice that he needed to make inquiry into his ability to lawfully purchase products containing pseudoephedrine.” Slip op. at 21. The court reasoned that the fair notice requirement was satisfied because the defendant knew he was purchasing pseudoephedrine and knew he had a prior meth conviction. The Supreme Court passed on the question of whether a mens rea should be read into the statute as a matter of due process, holding that this question was not properly preserved. Thus, the court did not decide whether the statute should be read to require an intent or knowledge element.

Dissenting Opinion

The two dissenting justices did not read the Lambert exception so narrowly. The dissenters observed: “Regarding the application of constitutional due process principles to the operation of statutes that create an imposition upon individuals convicted of a certain class of offenses that does not exist for the general population, I find the defendant in Lambert and the current defendant to be similarly situated.” Slip op. at 25 (Morgan, J., dissenting). The dissent continued the comparison, stating, “Like Lambert, there has been no showing made that of the probability that defendant knew of this change in the law which rendered illegal for him such activity that was legal for him a mere 36 days prior to his arrest.” Id . at 27. Bryant , the dissent said, was distinguishable. There, the defendant reasonably should have known of his duty to register. Among other circumstances, he was ordered to register for life. Here, Miller had no reason to suspect the law on pseudoephedrine had changed. Further, the dissent thought the emphasis of the majority on passive versus active conduct was too restrictive. The language of Bryant “defined the crucial phrase ‘wholly passive’ as turning on whether or not the attendant circumstances could reasonably be seen as providing notice.” Id . at 31. There being no such circumstances here, the dissenters would have found the statute unconstitutional as applied to Miller.

End of the Story?

Since Miller involves a federal constitutional challenge to a state statute, any appeal from the N.C. Supreme Court’s decision is directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The majority in Miller left the question of any required mental state in the statute open. So, perhaps we will see the courts weigh in again on this statute in a case where the mens rea argument is preserved. An interpretation of the statute that required some type of intent might avoid the somewhat tricky (at least to me) constitutional questions. If there’s further action on this issue, I’ll be sure to follow up with another post. In the meantime, defense lawyers representing clients convicted of a meth-related offense are well-advised to notify them of the ban on their possession of pseudoephedrine.

The post When is Ignorance of the Law an Excuse? appeared first on North Carolina Criminal Law .

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Ignorance of Law: How to Conceptualize and Maybe Resolve the Issue

First Online: 03 December 2019

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Under what circumstances should ignorance that someone is violating a moral or criminal rule preclude or lessen his moral responsibility and/or penal liability? In this chapter, I first construct a schema or framework for how to think about this issue. Quite a bit of confusion and uncertainty, I am sure, derives from a failure to understand exactly what this question is asking. I next defend some substantive views about how this question should be answered. If my defense is cogent, I conclude that a person who is ignorant that his conduct violates a moral or legal rule is almost never as blameworthy and/or deserving of as much punishment as someone who is fully aware that his behavior is wrongful and/or criminal. The best general accounts of responsibility and blameworthiness are far more receptive than positive law to allowing ignorance of wrongdoing as a complete or partial excuse.

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“Blameworthiness” and “Culpability” are not Synonymous: A Sympathetic Amendment to Simester

Recklessness, Willful Ignorance, and Exculpation

Moral responsibility, guilt, and retributivism.

The academic consensus is described in Garland ( 2018 , p. 1); the public consensus is described in Ciaramella ( 2017 ).

For recent commentary that challenges my position, see Guerrero ( 2015 ).

The various candidates are nicely described in Zimmerman ( 2014 ).

For a challenge about whether I am correct to say that Sabine exhibits a deficiency in reason-responsiveness, see Yaffe ( 2018 ).

For a challenge about whether persons can be reckless (as I construe it) about whether an act is wrongful, see Zimmerman ( 2018 ).

Ciaramella, C.J. 2017. ACLU poll: Majority of Americans, including Trump voters, say prison population should be reduced. CrimProfBlog. http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2017/11/aclu-poll-majority-of-americans-including-trump-voters-say-prison-population-should-be-reduced.html . Accessed 6 Mar 2019.

Garland, David. 2018. Theoretical advances and problems in the sociology of punishment. Punishment & Society 2: 8–33.

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Guerrero, Alex. 2015. Deliberation, responsibility, and excusing mistakes of law. Jurisprudence 6: 81–94.

Husak, Douglas, and Andrew von Hirsch. 1993. Culpability and mistake of law. In Action and value in criminal law , ed. John Gardner, Jeremy Horder, and Stephen Shute, 157. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Levy, Neil. 2011. Hard luck: How luck undermines free will and moral responsibility . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Rosen, Gideon. 2002. Culpability and moral ignorance. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (1): 61–84.

Yaffe, Gideon. 2018. Is akrasia necessary for culpability? On Douglas Husak’s “ignorance of law”. Criminal Law and Philosophy 12: 341–349.

Zimmerman, Michael J. 2008. Living with uncertainty . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. 2014. Ignorance and moral obligation . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

———. 2018. Recklessness, willful ignorance, and exculpation. Criminal Law and Philosophy 12: 327–329.

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Husak, D. (2019). Ignorance of Law: How to Conceptualize and Maybe Resolve the Issue. In: Alexander, L., Kessler Ferzan, K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Ethics and the Criminal Law. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22811-8_14

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Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse -- But Only For the Virtuous

dc.contributor.author	Kahan, Dan
dc.date	2021-11-25T13:34:14.000
dc.date.accessioned	2021-11-26T11:34:52Z
dc.date.available	2021-11-26T11:34:52Z
dc.date.issued	1997-01-01T00:00:00-08:00
dc.identifier	fss_papers/113
dc.identifier.contextkey	1369368
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/323
dc.description.abstract	It's axiomatic that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." My aim in this essay is to examine what the "mistake of law doctrine" reveals about the relationship between criminal law and morality in general and about the law's understanding of moral responsibility in particular. The conventional understanding of the mistake of law doctrine rests on two premises, which are encapsulated in the Holmesian epigrams with which I've started this essay.
dc.title	Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse -- But Only For the Virtuous
dc.source.journaltitle	Faculty Scholarship Series
refterms.dateFOA	2021-11-26T11:34:52Z
dc.identifier.legacycoverpage	https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/113
dc.identifier.legacyfulltext	https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=fss_papers&unstamped=1

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Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse, But It Is Reality

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Everyone in America knows that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” It is drummed into students from their first civics class in elementary school, so much so that it is a part of our cultural heritage. The phrase captures an important concept about culpability. It stems from a time when criminal law was grounded in morality and a shared understanding of wrongfulness and when crimes were self-evident wrongs—what the law calls “wrong in their essence,” or “ malum in se .” Perhaps the best example of how deeply this idea is ingrained in society is the classic Steve Martin comedy sketch in which Martin gazes into the camera plaintively and presents his defense to being accused of a “foul crime”: “two simple words, I forgot”—as in “I forgot armed robbery is illegal.” The joke, of course, is that nobody could forget that armed robbery (or rape or murder) is a crime. [1] That is because inherent wrongs put people on notice, in effect, that the criminal law might apply.

But the rule that ignorance is no excuse does not work as well for crimes that are not inherently wrong. Today, there are thousands of crimes that are crimes only because they are prohibited by statute. For these types of crimes—known as “wrongs by prohibition,” or malum prohibitum [2] —the principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse works only when a person knows what the statute requires or, at a minimum, could have discovered what the statute requires with a reasonable amount of effort.

Therein lies the problem. The criminal laws are not always easy to track down and not always easy to understand. In fact, many laws are nearly impossible to understand in all of their complexity, and the whole corpus of federal law is in fact impossible to know. There are so many crimes in the federal law books that no conscientious citizen (or even a conscientious legislator, law enforcement officer, lawyer, or judge) could possibly know what they require. This puts Americans at risk of conviction and imprisonment for the violation of laws that are impossible to find and impossible to know, effectively discarding the traditional protection that conviction requires culpability.

The way to fix this problem is to require the federal government to identify all of the criminal provisions of federal law. Those provisions should then be consolidated in a single, easily accessible place—such as Title 18 of the U.S. Code—for ease of location and understanding. Additionally, Congress should require the executive branch to keep the list up-to-date, to ensure that Americans have a fighting chance to keep up with the criminal laws that apply to their conduct.

Ignorance Is No Excuse

The idea that ignorance of the law is no excuse is captured today in the doctrine of “ scienter .” In general, an individual can be guilty of a criminal act only if he acts with a criminal intent, or scienter , to accomplish a criminal purpose. Under most statutes, to win a conviction, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted “knowingly.”

The requirement that a crime involve culpable purposeful intent has a solid historical grounding. As Justice Robert Jackson wrote:

The contention that an injury can amount to a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion. It is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil. A relation between some mental element and punishment for a harmful act is almost as instinctive as the child’s familiar exculpatory “But I didn’t mean to,” and has afforded the rational basis for a tardy and unfinished substitution of deterrence and reformation in place of retaliation and vengeance as the motivation for public prosecution. Unqualified acceptance of this doctrine by English common law was indicated by Blackstone’s sweeping statement that to constitute any crime there must first be a “vicious will.” [3]

The very earliest English common law recognized that one who intends to commit a crime (say, injuring a horse) but accidentally commits a different crime (killing the horse) could not be said to have intended the graver offense and therefore could not be held criminally liable for it. [4] But this view of scienter—that the government must show that the defendant intended both to do the act constituting the offense and to accomplish the particular harm prohibited—did not last long. The English and American courts quickly came to the view that in most legal contexts, a criminal actor who intends to engage in an act is liable for whatever harm follows, even if it is different from that which he originally contemplated. In the words of the Model Penal Code, one can act “knowingly” without regard to any specific intent to accomplish a wrongful act or violate a law. It is enough to know that one is undertaking the acts that constitute the offense.

As to malum in se offenses, this doctrine is not in the least problematic. Everyone knows, for example, that shooting another person is wrongful conduct and may bring criminal sanction. Accordingly, the law infers intentionality and culpability, even where there may be no direct evidence that the result (killing another person) was specifically intended.

As to the growing number of malum prohibitum offenses, however, the analysis is radically different. Building on the maxim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” courts now routinely conclude that one can be convicted of a crime for having acted knowingly (that is, purposefully doing an act) without requiring the government to prove that the defendant sought to achieve a particular end or to violate a known legal duty contained in a statute or regulation. For example, violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act require only proof of deliberate business conduct, not proof of intent to abuse a monopoly or to restrain competition.

As a result, for malum prohibitum offenses, scienter requirements provide little protection against conviction in the absence of culpability. Consider, for example, the risk of prosecution in a highly regulated industry. Though the law often requires the government to prove that defendants acted “knowingly”—a seeming protection from the imposition of strict liability—that requirement is but a parchment barrier. At the urging of prosecutors, judges have interpreted many of the statutes that apply to regulated industries so that those who participate in the industry are presumed to be knowledgeable of all the arcane regulatory intricacies that govern their conduct. [5] As a consequence, the only requirement imposed by requiring proof that one has acted “knowingly” is that the government must demonstrate that the defendant has purposefully done the act constituting the offense—in other words, that the defendant was not sleepwalking, acting under some delusion, or the like at the time—and in the context of regulated economic conduct, that showing is trivial. Moreover, proof that the defendant in fact lacked knowledge of the regulatory requirement at issue is uniformly no defense to prosecution.

A typical example is the crime of “knowingly filing a false monitoring report” under the Clean Water Act. [6] The law that defines what is false or misleading is part of a large regulatory scheme that also obligates each individual filing a report to ensure the accuracy of any reports made. As a consequence, the only showing the government must make to the satisfaction of a jury is that the defendant “knowingly filed” the report, irrespective of whether or not he knew it to be false, and because nobody files a report without doing so intentionally, the only showing necessary is that the defendant actually put a letter in the mail. As Justice Potter Stewart noted of defendants accused of such offenses, “[a]s a practical matter…they are under a species of absolute liability for violation of the regulations despite the ‘knowingly’ requirement.” [7]

How Many Federal Crimes Are There?

All of this would be tolerable if it were in fact feasible for law-abiding citizens to know all that the law requires. If, for example, a person could know all of the regulatory requirements of the Clean Water Act and every other statute, then it might be appropriate in some circumstances to charge individuals with the obligation of finding out what the rules are. Thus, it is assumed that a billiards player knows the rules, and they may be held against him whether or not he actually does.

But the premise of that argument is that it is possible to learn all of the rules—that there is some rule book to which one can refer before choosing to act. Sadly, in the criminal law of the United States, there is no such rule book. There is no place that an average American citizen can go to learn all of the criminal laws that may apply to his conduct.

In fact, no one even knows how many federal criminal laws there are, much less what they require. The last time the Congressional Research Service was asked to quantify the number of federal crimes, it told Congress that it could not do so with any certainty. [8] The best recent estimate, by Louisiana State University Professor of Law John Baker, is that there are more than 4,500 criminal offenses contained in federal statutes—and even this estimate is already a half-decade old. [9] All we know for sure is that the number of crimes grows every year.

How could it possibly be so challenging to count the number of federal crimes? In the past, it was not so difficult. Federal crimes were collected in one place—Title 18 of the U.S. Code, titled “Crimes and Criminal Procedure”—and so were easy to find. Today, however, federal crimes are scattered across almost all of the 51 titles of the Code, making it effectively impossible for an average citizen to find them all.

Nor is this problem limited to the federal criminal code. Often, a federal statute criminalizes violations of any requirements contained in agency regulations, and nobody has any idea how many regulations are subject to criminal enforcement. One expert, Professor John Coffee of Columbia Law School, has estimated that there are more than 300,000 separate federal regulations that might be the basis for a criminal prosecution. [10]

It is, if anything, even more difficult to count all the state laws and regulations. There are 50 state jurisdictions, with thousands of laws and tens of thousands of regulations. On top of that are untold thousands of city and county ordinances, many of which impose jail time for violations.

With the proliferation of criminal law, no American citizen can reasonably be expected to know all of the statutes that may apply. It may be that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but for virtually 100 percent of Americans, ignorance is the reality. As a result, according to Harvey Silverglate, a well-respected attorney and author, the average American may commit three felonies a day without even knowing it. [11]

The fact that no one can even locate every criminal offense matters profoundly. Americans would not countenance hidden speed limits on the roads, because there would be no justice in punishing those who exceeded limits that they could not possibly know. Likewise, for criminal offenses that are effectively hidden, punishment is unjust.

The rule that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” was born at a time when there were fewer than a dozen common law felonies, and all those crimes stemmed from and mirrored a commonly shared moral code. Today, the criminal law is a collection of social preferences. Some of them are obvious and reflect common sense notions of wrongfulness, but many reflect only a legislative judgment. It may indeed be a bad idea to ride a manatee for fun, but it is unlikely that anyone would know it was a federal crime—until they read this paper or were prosecuted for it. [12]

An Agenda for Change

The history of change in scienter requirements has been substantial. The criminal law today is far different from the criminal law of a century ago. For regulatory crimes, there is in effect a standard of near-absolute liability based on the no-longer-applicable maxim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” The tragedy is that while ignorance may not be an excuse, it is the reality for American citizens and even for their legislators. Americans are therefore asked to undertake an impossible task—knowing what conduct is allowed and what prohibited—and then punished when they fail. That is simply unjust.

This problem is not intractable and can be addressed in steps, beginning at the federal level. As an initial matter, Congress should demand that the Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office, or the executive branch identify and count all of the crimes in the U.S. Code. [13] Once that is done, all of the crimes in the code should be consolidated or referenced in Title 18, accessible over the Internet without charge, and kept up-to-date.

Only then would American citizens have a fighting chance of understanding the law that regulates their conduct. Only then would it be possible for us again to expect citizens to know the law.

—Paul Rosenzweig is a Visiting Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[1] Transcript of Steve Martin Monologue, http://snltranscripts.jt.org/77/77imono.phtml (Jan. 21, 1978).

[2] Given how hard it is to know all of the laws, one suggestion is that we should revive the concept of a “mistake of law” defense to criminal charges. See Paul J. Larkin, Jr., “Time for a ‘Mistake of Law’ Defense” (Heritage Foundation, April 2013), http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2013/4/time-for-a-mistake-of-law-defense .

[3] Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 250–51 (1952).

[4] See Dobbs Case, 2 East P.C. 513 (1770); see also Thacker v. Commonwealth, 114 S.E. 504 (Va. 1922) (defendant shot at a light and struck and killed a victim; not guilty of murder); State v. Peery, 28 N.W.2d. 851 (Minn. 1947) (requiring proof of “intent to be lewd” in indecent exposure prosecution of defendant who was accidentally viewed through ground-floor window by passers-by).

[5] E.g. , United States v. Int’l Minerals & Chemical Corp., 402 U.S. 558, 565 (1971) (“[W]here…dangerous or deleterious materials are involved, the probability of regulation is so great that anyone who is aware that he is in possession of them or dealing with them must be presumed to be aware of the regulation.”).

[6] See 33 U.S.C. § 1319(c)(4) (making it a crime to knowingly make a false statement in any certification required by the regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency). Those regulations, in turn, require the compliance with permit requirements, which typically require the filing of a “discharge monitoring report.” See 40 C.F.R. § 122.41(l)(4). As this brief exegesis demonstrates, even discerning that the law criminalizes the filing of a false report is itself a difficult endeavor.

[7] United States v. Int’l Minerals & Chemical Corp., 402 U.S. 558, 569 (1971) (Stewart, J., dissenting).

[8] See Paul Rosenzweig, “The History of Criminal Law,” at 129 & n.4, in Paul Rosenzweig & Brian Walsh, eds., One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty (Heritage Foundation 2010).

[9] See John S. Baker Jr., “Revisiting the Explosive Growth of Federal Crimes,” Legal Memorandum No. 26 (Heritage Foundation, June 2008), http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/06/revisiting-the-explosive-growth-of-federal-crimes .

[10] See John C. Coffee Jr., Does “Unlawful” Mean “Criminal”? Reflections on the Disappearing Tort/Crime Distinction in American Law , 71 B.U. L. Rev. 193, 216 (1991). Note that this estimate is now more than 20 years old. The number today can only be greater.

[11] See Harvey Silverglate, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (Encounter Books 2011).

[12] Specifically, it is a violation of the Endangered Species Act.

[13] Or, failing that, adopt a “Mistake of Law” defense. See Larkin, supra n. 2.

Former Visiting Fellow, The Heritage Foundation (2009-2017)

Americans are less safe today than they were a decade ago due to failed models of criminal justice reform, rogue prosecutors, and politicized unequal law enforcement.

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HISTORY & CULTURE

Illegal to be ’ugly’? The history behind one of America‘s cruelest laws

For nearly a century, so-called “ugly laws” banned people with visible disabilities and diseases from public spaces, revealing society’s harsh standards of beauty and the impact on those who didn’t meet them.

Research has shown that beauty gives you a leg-up in relationships, school, and the workplace. But what if being considered unattractive wasn’t just a social hurdle but a criminal offense? From the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, so-called “ugly laws” banned “unsightly” people from public places across the United States.

While we often hear about pretty privilege—the unearned advantages enjoyed by those who meet our culture’s beauty standards—this legislation took the consequences for not measuring up to a new extreme. Here’s what these little-known laws reveal about who our society considers beautiful and how they affected people who fell short of that ideal.

The rise of pretty privilege

As cities expanded and public spaces became more crowded, there was a growing emphasis on maintaining order and aesthetics in urban environments. San Francisco was the first city to make it a crime for “any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” to “expose himself or herself to public view” in 1867.

The legislation, which quickly spread to other cities and states—including Reno, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; Chicago, Illinois; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Pennsylvania—targeted people with visible disabilities. It was part of a larger effort to regulate public behavior and enforce social norms, often appearing alongside restrictions on racial integration, immigration, and vagrancy, according to Susan M. Schweik, author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public .

A section from The San Francisco call from March 09, 1895.

Some justified the laws as a public health measure under the mistaken belief that seeing someone with a disability could literally make a healthy person sick. Others argued that allowing disabled people to beg for money made it too easy for pretenders to take advantage by faking a disability. The laws seem to have been most strongly motivated by revulsion.

Journalist Junius Henri Browne wrote in The Great Metropolis , his 1869 memoir of life in New York City, that “when you are on your way to dinner, or to visit your beloved, or have composed in your mind the last stanza of the new poem that has given you such trouble, it is not agreeable to be confronted by some loathsome vision.”

These laws cost some people their ability to earn a living. Disabled street vendors, panhandlers, and performers were forced out of work because their presence disrupted public enjoyment of urban spaces.

For instance, in the mid-1910s, a 35-year-old Cleveland man with clubbed hands and feet had to give up his job selling newspapers due to the law. He struggled to support himself and his family until a local drug store owner permitted him to sell from the shop’s front stoop so he would be on private, rather than municipal, property.

( Can trauma be inherited through genes? )

“Helen Keller and FDR [President Franklin D. Roosevelt] weren’t the law’s targets,” says Schweik. “Its most obvious function was to prevent or discourage people with visible disabilities from being in public space asking people for money.”

Some of the laws’ supporters believed that if disabled people were moved from the streets into institutions, they would receive better care. This approach, however, only led to further marginalization by stripping disabled individuals of their right to self-determination and isolating them from the rest of society.

Not everyone supported the ugly laws. Some mayors began issuing peddling permits specifically to people with disabilities to protect their income, and bystanders would often intervene when police attempted an arrest, making enforcement challenging.

For example, in 1936, when a Chicago police officer attempted to arrest Ben Lewis , a Black amputee, by kicking his good leg out from under him, four white onlookers attacked the policeman while hundreds of others rallied around them.

Ugly laws’ lasting impact

While the ugly laws themselves are no longer in effect—the last recorded arrest related to an ugly law was in 1974, under an Omaha, Nebraska , ordinance—their legacy continues to influence attitudes toward disability and public space.

( Here’s h ow the Americans with Disabilities Act transformed a country .)

“Instead of public ugly laws, cities now have sleek sidewalk management plans to prevent or deter acts by some people that some other people think are not a good look, like standing too long too noticeably on the street, or sitting there, or sleeping, or having stuff, or being obviously in too much need,” says Schweik.

The ugly laws, however, also had a positive outcome. Disability advocates in the 1970s used the laws as a shocking example of discrimination that demonstrated their need for civil rights protections. Their activism led to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which requires businesses and governments to provide disability accommodations.

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Why Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz as her running-mate

Compared with a bolder but more divisive alternative, the minnesota governor was the easier choice.

Tim Walz arrives to speak at a press conference at City Hall in Bloomington, Minnesota, August 1st 2024

K EN MARTIN , the chairman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labour Party ( DFL ), Minnesota’s affiliate of the Democratic Party, tells a story about how the state’s governor, Tim Walz, got his start in politics. In 2004 Mr Walz was a high-school teacher in Mankato, a town of 45,000 people in the south of the state. In that year’s presidential election , he decided to take his class to a George W. Bush event. Unbeknown to him, his students had hatched a plan to tease the then president. “They all had [John] Kerry shirts on,” says Mr Martin. “They ripped their sweaters off and, well, they got kicked out of that rally by the Secret Service.” Mr Walz, according to Mr Martin, “was really pissed”—not at his students, but at the Bush campaign. “He called me up…he wanted to get involved,” says Mr Martin, who made him a local campaign organiser.

Two years later, Mr Walz stood for Congress in Minnesota’s first district, a heavily rural area covering the south of Minnesota where only one other Democrat had won in the preceding century. Mr Martin says that he remembers hearing of Mr Walz’s candidacy and thinking: “There’s no way in hell he’s going to win.” But Mr Walz got 53% of the vote. Twelve years later, having held onto his district even as other rural Democrats shed theirs, he ran for governor. In 2022 he was re-elected and his party won the state house and senate, giving Democrats a trifecta for the first time in eight years.

It is in part that electoral history that explains why Kamala Harris , now officially the Democratic nominee for president, has picked Mr Walz to be her running-mate. Today she will appear with him at a rally in Philadelphia, along with Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, who lost out to Mr Walz. Yet her choice also reflects a decision to minimise intra-party conflict. Mr Shapiro, initially one of the favourites for the ticket, stumbled because of criticism that mounted of his positions on the war in Gaza and of his support for school vouchers. By contrast Mr Walz’s stock has soared in the past few weeks, particularly with the left of the Democratic Party.

What Mr Walz does not bring, in a way that Mr Shapiro might have, is name recognition on the ticket in a swing state. The last time Minnesota voted for a Republican president was in 1972. Republicans would love to flip it—in July Donald Trump hosted a rally in St Cloud, in the centre of the state. But if Minnesota is in play (which current polling suggests it is not) then Ms Harris’s campaign is in bigger trouble than can be solved by a pick of vice-president.

Instead, the appeal of Mr Walz seems to be his personal political talent. In recent weeks he has become an energetic advocate for Ms Harris on television, and it was originally his critique of Republicans—“these guys are just weird”—that has become a general Democratic attack line. Mr Walz’s personal history also contrasts with Ms Harris’s Californian upbringing and rapid ascent into politics. He was born in rural Nebraska in 1964—six months before Ms Harris—and he likes to say that he attended a school where half of his classmates were his cousins. As well as his two decades as a teacher, he also served in the National Guard for 24 years, and retired as Command Sergeant Major in 2005. He is a committed hunter, and in his early years in Congress he was given an A rating by the National Rifle Association.

Despite his vibes, what Mr Walz also offers, and Mr Shapiro did not, is an unambiguously progressive record, at least as governor. (As a congressman, he was considered on the right of his party.) Since the DFL seized control of the state legislature, he has increased spending on public schools, introduced free school meals, created a system of paid family leave (due to start operating in 2026), legalised marijuana, expanded background checks for gun buyers and strengthened abortion rights. All of this he is deeply unapologetic for. “Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values,” he told attendees on a fundraising call in late July, adding that “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighbourliness.” Hence the love-bombing of teachers unions and other progressive groups.

On foreign policy—a key area for a potential vice-president—some of his views can be discerned from a speech he gave in 2007, when he criticised the Bush administration for its focus on security and its neglect of international diplomacy. “I would argue that one of the foundational principles of this country was the basic support of human rights and the ability to promote that worldwide,” he said, arguing that America needed to do more to “try and adjust behaviour in a non-military way”. Congress, he then argued, was “no longer listening to the rational centre”, which was why it had authorised the “destabilising” invasion of Iraq. As governor in 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, he signed a law to divest state investments in Russia, but he has resisted calls from left-wingers to do the same with Israel.

He is not without baggage. In 2020 when Minneapolis was hit by riots after the murder of George Floyd, he waited a full day to respond to the call of Jacob Frey, the city’s Democratic mayor, to send in the National Guard. While he hesitated, a police station was set on fire by a mob. Mr Walz argued that the National Guard could not be deployed that quickly, but Republicans will not hesitate to pin the disorder on him. A more recent criticism stems from an enormous fraud perpetrated on the state department of education in the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic, in which money intended to feed children being taught remotely was instead stolen. The state’s independent legislative auditor has criticised Mr Walz’s administration for “denial or dismissiveness or excuses” in the face of allegations of mishandling money.

There are also a few quiet worries about his personal life. Mr Walz is a teetotaller (indeed, like J.D. Vance, Mr Trump’s pick for vice-president, he apparently loves Diet Mountain Dew, a sickly sweet soft drink). But he was not always so. In 1995, when he was still a teacher, he was arrested and charged with driving drunk, though he was eventually convicted of reckless driving.

Nonetheless, now he is Ms Harris’s pick, clips of Mr Walz being punchy on cable news seem likely to light up TikTok and other social media. Barely known outside Minnesota a month or so ago, he has become a leading light of the left of the Democratic Party. He is, in the minds of many, proof that Democrats can win without having to compromise on their core values. In reality, political science suggests that vice-presidential picks make only a tiny amount of difference in presidential elections, so the premise will be lightly tested either way. But Ms Harris had a choice: pick a swing-state governor who might upset the Democratic base, but has a proven record of winning, or pick the one likely to reassure them, and hope unity wins out. She went for the easier path. ■

Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief , our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important electoral stories, and Checks and Balance , a weekly note from our Lexington columnist that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters.

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IMAGES

Ignorance of the Law Essay Example
John Selden Quote: “Ignorance of the law excuses no man.”
Article 3 Ignorance of the Law Excuses No One
(PDF) Ignorance of the Law David Boonin
Document
Why They Say "Ignorance Of the Law is No Excuse"

COMMENTS

Ignorantia juris non excusat
In law, ignorantia juris non excusat (Latin for "ignorance of the law excuses not"), [1] or ignorantia legis neminem excusat ("ignorance of law excuses no one"), [2] is a legal principle holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely by being unaware of its content.. European-law countries with a tradition of Roman law may also use an ...
Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse
The rule "ignorance of the law is no excuse" really means that people can't defend their actions by claiming they didn't know the law. It would be too easy for people to break a contract, ignore a neighbour's right to privacy or sell drugs if they could get away with it by arguing they didn't know it was against the law.
Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse
The legal maxim "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is encapsulated in the Latin phrase, "ignorantia juris non excusat."It signifies a fundamental principle in many legal systems whereby individuals are presumed to know and understand the laws of the jurisdiction in which they live or act, and they cannot escape liability for violating the law merely by claiming they were unaware of its content.
Ignorance of the Law Is Not an Excuse
In general, the law says yes. The legal principle of ignorantia juris non excusat (ignorance of the law excuses not) or ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of law excuses no one) is derived from Roman law. Essentially, it means that if someone breaks the law, he or she is still liable even if they had no knowledge of the law being broken.
Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse
Dan M. Kahan, Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse - but Only for the Virtuous , 96 M ich. L. R ev. 127 (1997). It's axiomatic that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." My aim in this essay is to examine what the "mistake of law doctrine" reveals about the relationship between criminal law and morality in general and about the law's understanding of ...
Duquesne Law Review
the law by the unstudied. Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse is one of these.' That ignorance of the law provides no defense is a cornerstone in the edifice of criminal law generally. 2 . While lawyers know that mental states of various character must often be proven for convic-tion of crime, proof of knowledge of criminality is immaterial.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse -- or is it?
The more the element is the core of the crime, the more it seems like the norm that ignorance of the law is no excuse should apply. On the other hand, the more the legal question raised by the ...
St. John's Law Review
Weiss, 276 N.Y. 384, 12 N.E.2d 514 (1938) (defendants had valid defense in good faith belief that they were acting within the law). However, in each case where a mistake or ignorance of law is a defense, the defendant "is saved from conviction [because] . . . one of the elements required for guilt has been disproved."
Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse -- But Only For the Virtuous
It's axiomatic that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." My aim in this essay is to examine what the "mistake of law doctrine" reveals about the relationship between criminal law and morality in general and about the law's understanding of moral responsibility in particular. The conventional understanding of the mistake of law doctrine rests on ...
Supreme Court to CountryWide: Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse
One case decided by the Supreme Court this week had a decidedly everyman theme to it. First there is the maxim the majority, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, uses to define its opinion: "ignorance of the law is no excuse." Justice Sotomayor puts it in slightly more formal terms, but that is the basis for the majority holding that debt ...
Ignorantia legis non excusat
"Ignorance of the law excuses no one." A doctrine requiring all persons to know their legal duties, such that actual ignorance of these duties will not prevent a finding of liability for their violation. Bone fide ignorance of relevant facts, in contrast, may excuse a failure to fulfill a legal duty that should have been fulfilled had those ...
Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse
[mistake of law as an] excuse at all would be to encourage ignorance where the law-maker has determined to make men know and obey, and justice to the individual is rightly outweighed by the larger inter ests on the other side of the scales. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.2 It's axiomatic that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." My aim
A Critical Analysis of the Principle of Ignorance of the Law is Not An
INTRODUCTION . The rule "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" literally means that people cannot defend their actions by claiming they did not know the law, even if you honestly did not realize that you were braking the law.Ignorance of the law occurs when one has full knowledge of law but is either ignorant of the legal effect of those laws or retains an erroneous belief as to their legal ...
When is Ignorance of the Law an Excuse?
Published for NC Criminal Law on June 20, 2017. An ancient maxim of the law is ignorantia juris non excusat, or ignorance of the law does not excuse. Put another way, it is presumed that the public knows the laws, and a defense of ignorance is typically not allowed. This principle is at the heart of the recent decision by the state supreme ...
Ignorance of Law: How to Conceptualize and Maybe Resolve the Issue
A Framework to Conceptualize the Issue. In this section, I introduce seven features of a framework for thinking about whether and under what circumstances ignorance of a rule should preclude moral and/or penal responsibility. Although each of these features is important, some are more philosophically debatable and merit more discussion than ...
Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse -- But Only For the Virtuous
The conventional understanding of the mistake of law doctrine rests on two premises, which are encapsulated in the Holmesian epigrams with which I've started this essay. dc.title: Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse -- But Only For the Virtuous: dc.source.journaltitle: Faculty Scholarship Series: refterms.dateFOA: 2021-11-26T11:34:52Z: dc.identifier ...
PDF Who says "Ignorance of the law is no excuse"?
Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. This substantive principle is sometimes put in the form of a rule of evidence, that every one is presumed to know the law. It has accordingly been defended by Austin and others, on the ground of difficulty of proof.". Blackstone (Book 4, ch.2, 27) "often a mistake in point of law which ...
Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat
Ignorance of Law is no Excuse. R. L. Narasimham*. The roman maxim that ignorance of law is no excuse seems to hold morally. innocent persons criminally liable relying on an obvious that everyone is presumed to know the law. The ludicrous nature of this fiction will be apparent in the well-known observations of Lord Mansfield : "It would be hard ...
Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse, But It Is Reality
The rule that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" was born at a time when there were fewer than a dozen common law felonies, and all those crimes stemmed from and mirrored a commonly shared ...
Ignorance of the law
Ignorance of the law. Ignorance of the law excuses no one from compliance therewith. (Article 3 of the Civil Code of the Philippines) This means that there is a conclusive presumption that everyone knows the law, even if they have no actual knowledge of the law as long as there has been publication. The laws referred to by this article are ...
Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat
The maxim Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat means ignorance of the law is no excuse. "Ignorance of the law is not an excuse," says an ancient legal nostrum. This maxim is originated from ancient Roman law. The reason is quite simple, if ignorance can excuse any crime, then ignorance could excuse all crimes. Instead of imposing on the legal ...
Illegal to be 'ugly'? The history behind one of America's cruelest laws
A blind street musician performs in New York City, 1898. While New York never officially enacted an "ugly law," it drafted one similar to those in other cities across the nation, as part of ...
Why Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz as her running-mate
K EN MARTIN, the chairman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labour Party (DFL), Minnesota's affiliate of the Democratic Party, tells a story about how the state's governor, Tim Walz, got his start in ...

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