Use of the word &quot;statute&quot; In the United States, what fragment of codified federal or state law can I refer to as a "statute"? For example, in federal law, is it proper to use the word "statute" to refer to: a title (e.g., 15 U.S.C.)? a section (e.g., 15 U.S.C. § 6802)? a subsection (e.g., 15 U.S.C. § 6802(b), 15 U.S.C. § 6802(b)(1), etc.)? some of the above? all of the above?
None of the things listed are statutes. They are all parts of or compilations of parts of statutes. A 'statute' is a document issued by an official body, such as Congress, which contains a law or command. 'USC' refers to the United States Code, which is a compilation of statutory law. It is not the law. It is prima facie evidence of the law, but may be proven to be wrong. The 'statute' is the Act passed by Congress. These can be found in the United States Statutes at Large. For example, the Labor Management Relations Act 1947 (Public Law 80–101, 61 Stat 136, also known as the Taft–Hartley Act) is a statute, passed by Congress on 23 June 1947. It is codified at (i.e. a reasonably reliable copy of the provisions of the Act, taking into account subsequent amendments, can be found at) 29 USC s 401-531. But 29 USC is not a statute in any sense of the word. To use a particularly 'meta' example: 1 USC 204(a) codifies the rule that the USC is prima facie evidence of the state of the law of the United States, but the statute which made this rule is Public Law 80-278, 61 Stat 633 ('An Act to codify and enact into positive law, title 1 of the United States Code, entitled "General Provisions"'), which consists of a slab of text copied out of the United States Code as it then stood. So Congress does sometimes enact parts of the Code; but the Code itself is not a statute.
The comments have basically covered this, but: It's a slightly weird parallel structure ("who shall not be at least 25, and been a citizen for 7 years, and who shall not be a resident"). The Constitution is not written in fluid 21st-century English. But the obviously correct way to parse the sentence is that no one can be a representative who isn't a 25-year-old or older who's been a citizen for at least 7 years; furthermore, no one can be a representative who wasn't a resident of the state they represent when they were elected. With some parts of the Constitution (like the Second Amendment), the drafting results in actual disputes about the intended meaning. With other parts (like here), only one reading makes any sense. It's the same with the requirements to be President. The Constitution says "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President," which could be read as "you're not eligible unless, when the Constitution was adopted, you were either a citizen of the US or a natural-born citizen." But that's a silly reading, so "at the time of the Adoption" is read as only applying to "a Citizen of the United States:" natural-born citizens are eligible period, and people who were born before the US was a thing but were citizens by the time the Constitution was adopted were grandfathered in.
what does the phrase &quot;in this act unless context requires otherwise&quot; mean? It means that the provision or statutory definition is not to be imposed where its application would make no sense or would lead to an absurd outcome. Using the example point out, statutory or judicial references to &quot;laws of physics&quot;, &quot;law of supply and demand&quot;, and so forth are not to be construed as enactments or rulings issued by some authority. Accordingly, such laws are not susceptible to violation, enforcement, or repeal.
You've basically described two of the ends of the pole in theories of jurisprudence (there are dozens of ends). There is no theory of law that relies purely on &quot;spirit&quot; (also no theory that actually relies on the letters uses=d in writing law), instead, everybody interprets the text (the words enacted by the government) and some people supplement their interpretation with consideration of &quot;other factors&quot;, such as assumed legislative purpose. Certain scholars and judges are inclined to put most weight on the actual wording of the law, while others are inclined to let purposive considerations dictate the interpretation of a law. Interpreting law by W.N. Eskridge is an informative guide to supplementing a reading of the statute with anciliary considerations. Antonin Scalia is the best-known proponent of the textualist approach.
commonwealthunited-states The most comprehensive source of reporter abbreviation in the commonwealth and United States is found in the Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations, which should be available at any law library. For the United States, the Bluebook might be more comprehensive. Most law schools or libraries also publish their own abbreviation indices for common reporters. See e.g. The University of Aberdeen's. Here is another from the University of McGill. They all show, for example, that &quot;All E.R.&quot; is an abbreviation for &quot;All England Law Reports.&quot; Some databases create their own citation formats that look like neutral citations: see e.g. https://www.bailii.org/bailii/citation.html
Context is important. There is no law against taking a picture of a child who is entirely naked or exposing certain body parts. The laws in question such as 18 USC 2251 refer to the fact that the minor "engage[s] in, any sexually explicit conduct". Sexually explicit conduct is defined in 18 USC 2256, and would include "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area" (which does not include nipples of anyone). Federal law does not define "lascivious", but the ordinary meaning of the word does not include the situation that you describe. The Justice Department, which goes after child pornographers, provides this guide to federal child porn laws. Georgia's child porn law is only marginally different, referring to "Lewd exhibition" rather than "Lascivious exhibition" , and including the "Condition of being fettered, bound, or otherwise physically restrained on the part of a person who is nude" (so a picture of a person holding a naked baby would technically qualify, but is highly unlikely to be prosecuted as production of child porn). These laws pertain to any form of child porn, including "private use only". Dissemination would be an added charge.
I did a lot of digging through case law and statutes, but I don't see a definition for "biological sex" anywhere in federal law, though after looking through those cases, it seems pretty clear that courts think of "biological sex" as a definition of "sex," and that they take it to mean the sex listed on your birth certificate. Even if we could find a straightforward statutory definition, it probably wouldn't do much to inform the interpretation of this memorandum, as it would only apply to the specific section of law in which the definition was included.
What is the estimated number of lines in all current US federal laws? I realize that this metrics isn't accurate. Which font size do we use? Do we include comments? How to count someone v. United States? U.S. federal law consists of: 52 Titles of the United States Code (some of which have more than one volume) and a smattering of uncodified statutes that probably would take up one or two additional books. On the order of 100 volumes. About 2 volumes worth of federal court rules of general applicability. About 200 sets of local court rules for particular federal courts. On the order of 20 volumes for the whole set. About 2000 volumes of the Federal Reporter which sets forth published appellate court decisions. About 2150 volumes of the Federal Supplement which sets forth selected federal trial court opinions. On the order of 500 volumes of the Federal Rules Decisions which sets forth selected trial court opinions interpreting court rules. 582 volumes of the United States Reporter which sets forth U.S. Supreme Court decisions. A set of U.S. Treaties in Force on the order of 20-30 volumes. The Code of Federal Regulations (50 titles, some of which have more than one volume). On the order of 200 volumes. Several hundred treaties with U.S. Indian tribes, probably about 20 volumes. About 500 volumes of territorial legislation still in force (e.g. statutes of Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, District of Columbia, Indian reservations). So, this would mean roughly 4500 volumes that have about 1000 pages of text each for a total of 4,500,000 pages, typically single spaced in 10 point (10/72nds of an inch) font on letter sized paper with half inch margins (i.e. 7.5 inches for text per page top to bottom) which works out to on the order of 50 lines per page. So, roughly, 225 million lines of code equivalent for primary federal materials only. There are some judgment calls about definitions here. For example, I did not include the full text of all works deposited with the library of Congress as part of the documentation of copyrights, or the full text of all patents and trademarks ever issued, each of which would dramatically increase the total, even though reference to those materials is necessary to determine if another work infringes a copyright or patent. Similarly, I omitted recorded real estate documents and publicly filed corporate documents even though those could each be referenced as evidence in a court case to determine someone's legal rights. And, I didn't include court orders in trial courts with no precedential effects which are binding between the parties even though some consent decrees in that set of documents have the force of law. Of course, the problem is that U.S. federal law isn't an independent body of law by itself, by design. U.S. federal law routinely incorporates the law of the state in question by reference. For example, criminal liability in federal parks is determined in part by reference to state law. A full set of state statutes and regulations in a typical U.S. state would require perhaps 50 volumes for a total of about 2500 volumes, and the entire corpus of published state level case law for all states combined is on the order of 10,000 volumes. So, excluding municipal ordinances, you are looking at another 12,500,000 pages at 50 lines a page, for about 600 million lines of code. Local government ordinances are litigated in state court so there is no separate body of case law for them. But, there are about 100,000 local governments and there are probably about 2 volumes of law for each, so about 200,000,000 pages and about 1,000 million lines of code. I'm sure I've made some minor omissions (e.g., case law from the courts of U.S. Indian Tribes), but the grand total for all U.S. law local, state and federal is on the order of 2 billion (i.e. 2,000,000,000) lines of code. Also, keep in mind that this is only the primary materials and doesn't include treatises and textbooks and digests and law review articles interpreting the law which you need in practice to utilize this corpus of primary legal materials, and which can be referenced by courts in cases. On the other hand, secondary sources are profoundly less redundant than primary sources. You could have a pretty comprehensive collection of secondary sources with 2,000 volumes which would be about 2,000,000 pages and about 100 million lines of code which could be rolled into the omitted materials in my 2 billion lines estimate. Of course, this is highly redundant. Case law spends lots of time reciting rulings from prior cases and the language of the relevant statutes and regulations, for example, and many municipal ordinances start out with an exact copy of another municipality's municipal ordinances before the municipality starts writing its own original legislation. Similarly, state traffic codes are often copied from one another. Also, not every reported case continues to be good law. But, there is no good way to separate the wheat from the chaff for a user of these legal authorities. You need them all.