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Jurisprudence
Ambiguity & Law
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How Much Can Judges Interpret the Law?
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How much should cases rely on a judge's interpretation, rather than a previously-established legal standard?
Which is more fair?
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This is a redefinition of Justice.
Is Justice: holding those accountable for their crimes in the same manner, using the same standard?
Is Justice: holding those accountable for their crimes in a manner unique to each case?
Many people, especially regarding criminal law, will prefer the latter definition, and the American judicial system, despite its reliance on precedent and adherence to established legislation, agrees. Then again, enforcing the law on a case-by-case basis facilitates the abuse of the law by judges, attorneys, and jurists in favor of biased or non-legally based decisions and therefore diminishes the value of the law. On the other hand, a significant portion of the statutes the judiciary interprets are either weighed down with a confusing folding of clauses, which keeps both understanding and deviation from the meaning of the text at a low level, or too ambiguous, which can result in completely contradictory interpretations. The second option can have extremely negative effects. An ex-convict charged with petty robbery may face reasonably face 2 years of prison; under a blanket law, maybe he faces 5 years; under an ambiguous law, the judge may feel compelled to give him 1 year or 8. Additionally, another writer may suggest that 3 years is a more reasonable sentence. Part of a statute’s role is to set a standard and leave room for interpretation to find its way around the ballpark. There must, therefore, be a balance between inflexible specificity and blind ambiguity in its verbiage.
The American criminal justice system, as it stands, leaves the cards to the judge and jury, the latter of which can disregard instructions or qualifications for a burden of proof, and so with more freedom of interpretation can yield more emotionally-based (rather than legal or even logical) verdicts [1]. In most cases, injustice that comes from any court decision must be resolved in another court; the cycle repeats until “justice is served”. This cycle can be costly. The alternative, uniform law, also risks proponing injustice: though all would be charged equally under it, it still disfavors those in extraordinary, empathetic, or not-yet explicitly-defined circumstances; the accidental murder, the stealing out of necessity, the late-in-life crimes are left to hang. Which is, ultimately, better? There is no such thing as a legal system that will fairly treat everyone, whether by definition or in its lack of control over its judiciary, so what combination ensures justice at the higher level?
Then there’s the question of making sure that statutes are “fair” to begin with; proceduralism, which essentially determines “fairness” by how faithfully a court followed its established rules, falls short if these rules are unjust. If a statute is used in a variety of cases, however, the breathing room allotted to a judge who contests it could result in the changing of that statute to better apply to more cases. It’s important, therefore, for there to be “breathing room”, no matter the value of the statue. This is an especially unpopular opinion when applied to the Bill of Rights.
The compromise is a majoritarily-uniform law, with enough interpretation to give power to the courts; judicial bias remains, today, enough of a threat that the power of interpretation must be limited, but not removed. The actual difference in verdicts two judges can give to the same case can only be so vast, nor should they deviate from the established standard. A crime for which one is traditionally sentenced to 20 years can’t possibly allow for a guilty party to need to get off with paying a fine. A man murders; he is sentenced to life. A terminally-ill man murders the person who killed his wife; what’s his verdict? In rare cases, cases that call for movies and media and ethical dilemmas, as well as all cases with abnormal circumstances, depend entirely on judicial sympathy to be treated as such. There must be room for that empathy to blossom, but not dominate. The importance of a judge in a legal setting is never overstated. Bias in their judgment is as circumstance-dependent as their cases, and even the compromise of a semi-uniform law lets clouded judgment rule against the black defendant, the immigrant, the stereotyped, the hated, with an authoritative bang of a gavel. Is Justice: holding those accountable for their crimes based on their judge? Therefore, the law should strive to be both specific and guide judges in cases where the statute doesn’t quite apply clearly. With this goal, how its verbiage stays simple enough for the general population to comprehend remains to be seen. When judicial discrimination and bias can empirically be shown as minimal or significantly reduced, the reins on the scope of interpretation can be loosened; until then…
Image Credit: Stokeling v. United States, by Art Lien, Oct. 9, 2018. Edited by The Boston Hound.
[1]: Shah, R. et al. (2023) Quantifiers in the Law: The California Jury Instruction Project (13th International Student Poster Presentation Conference) Budapest, May.
Among many other points, the pilot experiment in this study confirmed the possibility of jurists ignoring instructions in cases that bring more emotional charge, or whose (legally-adherent) verdict would fall outside the jurist’s values or sense of justice.
