What kind of criminal are you?


Glenn Reynolds writes:
"Traditionally, of course, citizens have been expected to know the law.  But traditionally, regulatory crimes applied only to citizens in specialty occupations where they might be expected to be familiar with applicable regulatory law, while ordinary citizens needed no special knowledge to avoid committing rape, robbery, theft, etc.   But now, with the explosion of regulatory law, every citizen is at risk of criminal prosecution for crimes that [...] involve no actual harm or ill intent.  Yet any reasonable observer would have to conclude that actual knowledge of all applicable criminal laws and regulations is impossible, especially when those regulations frequently depart from any intuitive sense of what "ought" to be legal or illegal."
from a paper titled "Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime"....  

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"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion." — Proverbs 18:2