Why are you being purposely confusing and this uninformative in GQ? LSLGuy’s initial list included a bunch of Strict Liability regulatory infractions. Instead of asking a bunch of obscure questions, you could explain what Strict Liability laws/regulations are.
Furthermore, you are the one attempting to limit the discussion to the criminal code, and then jumping on lay people for not recognizing the way you are using legal jargon.
The answer to the OP: it depends what you consider “the law.” It’s perfectly valid from a lay perspective to think of the legal rules passed by the legislature, or developed by the administrative bureaucracy, or which come out of the judicial system as “the law.” And if you include all of that, then there are a number of laws or regulations or legal rules which people are likely to be violating at any given time. Driving laws and regulations are a pretty good example of this, since a lot of them tend to be strict liability.
Most of us don’t have a problem on a daily basis remaining on the good side of the criminal code. It’s the entire rest of the body of governmental compulsion which is problematic. And that’s the question (I believe) the OP asked.
And note I’m not arguing that all the rest of this law/regulation/code is over-reaching or unnecessary or evil.
Just that it’s impractical to achieve 100% compliance with it all and the rest of the legal system should (and mostly does) take that into account. And the net effect is a better society by curbing some of the most short-sighted or selfish motives of some of the most short-sighted or selfish people.
Really? You asked that question of the OP, and then turned around and tried to apply this distinction to other posters, who are obviously lay people.
Did it occur to you that a lay person may not understand this distinction? Most lay people are probably going to lump things like speeding regulations and criminal activities together under some general category, since they all involve doing something “wrong” that the government penalizes you for.
It’s very clear that LSLGuy is lumping all these things together, since that’s exactly what he did in post #6. And your response to that was to confusingly ask him about mens rea. And you quoted his entire post when you did so, instead of snipping out the strict liability infractions.
So, yeah. You’re being deliberately confusing and uninformative.
how much effort you are ready to put into learning all laws and local ordinances that apply to your area. Because ignorance is no excuse, but many people honestly do not know, and do not think far enough, to realize that honking the horn in a quiet neighborhood or leaving the engine running in the winter or picking up a feather from an exotic bird are all against the law.
the second big factor is running into problems with the law enforcement, and that depends on how your cops and their superiors and the law itself considers them. If there is any umbrella law for cops that basically says “Failure to comply with an order by a police officer” then you can keep all the laws and still run afoul of a particular bully.
For example, you know as law-conscious citizen, the speeding limit in your area, and are keeping well (10% to account for the inaccuracy) its limit. But then a cop decides that based on his personal estimate, you are too fast, and tickets you. In some areas of the US, the estimate of a cop is good enough, no need for fancy things like radar devices. So, even though you kept the law (your actual speed as shown by your tacho was below the limit), you are now guilty of breaking it (because a cop says so).
Hey, if laypeople understood all these things clearly from the get-go, he’d probably be out a few bucks . . . I’ll never forget the broom’s rapid ascent up the rear end of one of my own lawyers when I told I had been dealing with the issue I’d hired him for long enough now that I figured I knew enough to take it from here. O-FEND-ded with a capital FEND, he was.
I just tried to go back and put “nm” on my previous post, but missed the edit window. So apologies for that. I shouldn’t have tried to twist Bricker’s tail here, as he is a very valuable member of the community & deserves respect. But I’m likewise perplexed why he’s not making that contribution here.
The problem is exactly what you see with “Caylee’s Law”. The impetus is to pass more and more laws about the same thing, and make more and more actions illegal if the matter is pressed, until it is impossible to be fully compliant with all laws. Then, should you draw the attention or ire of the authorities, there is sometihng - anything - they can charge you with. Martha Stewart was sent to jail for a year because she erased an entry in a phone log on her computer, then retyped it back in an hour later. Casey gets 4 years for lying to police, in obvious revenge for beating the murder charges.
IIRC the “lying to police” charges were only applied to witnesses, not the accused. Now, it’s just another thing to tack onto the long list of charges. In Casey’s case, IIRC there were 17(!) charges. In Martha’s case, a dozen, IIRC. What’s the point of a law that only kickes in at most when another crime has already been committed?
They could, for example, have charged Casey with indignity to a dead body or whatever the Florida equivalent is. It’s the usual charge when some confused soul tosses their dead 90yo dead mother or still-born baby into a dumpster. Maybe they did charge her… but… wait for it… could not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
The problem is ther are so many laws, that no, I don’t think you can be in 100% compliance. And if you attract the attention of the authorities in some way, they will find something in that incident that (maybe) constitutes a crime. If you get off, you get what’s known as “OJ Justice”. You win your freedom but go broke doing so.
Perhaps my interpretation of the OP is overly literal (neverminding the definition of “law” one wishes), but I figured the answer was trivial: “Yes, it is possible, unless someone presents cites indicating a set of incompatible statutes/regulations/etc.” Or, in other words, can anyone prove the existence of inconsistent regulations with which it is logically impossible to be in compliance?
A simple example would be a roadway with both “Minimum Speed 45” and “Maximum Speed 40” in effect.
