You might have seen the story in the Post a couple days ago about a Virginia man who was acquitted of the charge of passing a stopped school bus. The statute says: "A person is guilty of reckless driving who fails to stop, when approaching from either direction, any school bus which is stopped ... for the purpose of taking on or discharging children."
The fellow's lawyer argued that absent the preposition "at" before "any school bus," the law is unenforceable, since what it seems to say is that drivers must stop the stopped school bus (no doubt what the driver was thinking at the time). But inserting "at" into the sentence would create further ambiguity by suggesting a false specificity about where drivers are to stop. In fact the real ambiguating feature is a misplaced comma, which should follow "approaching" rather than "stop."
However, the lawyer's capitalizing on the grammatical ambiguity is a clear and deliberate amphiboly, and sloppy punctuation aside, the statue's intended meaning is perfectly clear to a reader honestly seeking its meaning. This case illustrates neatly how an adversarial system of law aims at neither truth nor interpretive charity, but merely suborns sophistic gaming -- and blinkered literalism.
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While I entirely agree with your interpretation of this particular case, I have to stand behind our "adversarial" judicial system.
I think Locke's Social Contract theory has some truth to it, and frankly everyone who does wrong wants to get away with it. Anyone who maliciously (as opposed to ignorantly or mistakenly) breaks the Social Contract (i.e. laws) is therefore an opponent of the established order, and quite frankly, an enemy of the state.
This looks like a non-sequitur. That a community needs rules and must somehow enforce them is not at issue. My objection is specifically to a system of adjudication that systematically rewards dishonest conniving at the expense of critical thinking or pursuit of truth.
I will be honest. I am uncomfortable with your notion that the meaning behind the law in unmistakable to any honestly seeking it. I think that this instance does naught but remind us how correct grammar is essential, especially in the case of legal literature. Whoever crafted that law is to be blamed, not, I think, the lawyer.
Furthermore, without an adversarial system of law, what would there be? To what alternative should we focus our efforts?
Allow me to clarify. I do think that the perpetrator was in the wrong. But there is no reliable way to verify that he was not confused by the law, and if we were to assume that in a court of law it would set an extremely negative and unfortunate precedent.
Jacob, do you seriously believe that the driver had read the statute, and passed the stopped bus because he thought it instructed him to stop the (already) stopped bus, rather than his own vehicle? Also, can I interest you in some oceanfront property in Montana?
Snarky rhetorical questions aside, I think we can begin to imagine a system of justice which earnestly and collaboratively seeks the truth of events and intentions, and appropriate resolution of conflict, rather than pitting sophists against one another in the pursuit of Pyrrhic victory. I know this is rather different from the way we now do things, but I really don't think the way we now do things is working out very well for us.
And I'm also a huge fan of Grammatical Correctness.
No, of course I do not think that he had seriously read the statute and that his violation was an artifact of the incorrect grammar. But problems arise, I think, when we start enforcing laws that are not explicitly stated.
Yes, I can begin to imagine such a system of law, but it is only in my imagination where such may lay. You are right, of course, that the current legal landscape is not working out very well for us, but a system set on collaborative justice and truth seeking seems implausible. It would rely on everyone being honest and earnest but whenever an incident occurs there is always some people with vested interests in the truth not coming to light. We cannot rely on everyone to be self-detrimentally honest.
I am heartened that you, too, appreciate proper grammar.
There are some preliminary models, such as Truth and Reconciliation commissions in various conflict-ridden parts of the world, from which we can learn how to begin.
A non-adversarial system of law does not, as you allege, presuppose honesty and truthfulness on the part of its participants. Rather, it is structured so as to aim at truth (rather than at victory) on the basis of objective evidence and reason, whereas an adversarial system uses reason only instrumentally as one of several weapons in a gladitorial contest.
Several issues motivate this proposal, both epistemological and moral. I suspect it is premature to leap to the practical concerns, but I think they're answerable, too.
Proud to be both PC and GC.
Matt, this ruling frustrates me as well. However, I'm more irked by whoever was convinced by the lawyer. (I.e. the judge? I don't know how this trial worked) The lawyer is just trying to do his job (although I definitely think he could have done it better). If the law is as easy to interpret as you claim, then the (judge?) messed up by ruling in favor of the defendant.
It was a jury trial, I believe. My point, however, is that the lawyer did precisely what he is supposed to do in adversarial law -- win the case whatever it takes, and reason be damned.
Thus I am not so much disturbed by the case, which is merely representative, as by our society's conception of legal process.
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