Is ignorance of facts an excuse? Suppose there is a law saying it is illegal to XYZ between 10 PM and 6 AM. If Alice XYZs at 11 PM, she cannot use &quot;I didn't know about the law&quot; as a defense. What if she does know about the law, but her watch (due to something she could not have known about or prevented) incorrectly shows that it is 9 PM, and she has no reason to doubt it's accuracy and has no other way to determine the time? Is the fact that she knew about the law and could not have reasonably known she was violating it a defense?
canada It depends on what the mens rea requirement is. Mens rea if not specified in a criminal offence In Canada, if this is a criminal offence, and a mens rea is not specified in the Criminal Code, the presumption is that the mens rea would be satisfied by recklessness, knowledge, willful blindness, or intention (Pappajohn v. The Queen, [1980] 2 SCR 120; R. v. Briscoe, 2010 SCC 13). The prosecution would have to show that Alice was at least subjectively aware of the risk that she was doing XYZ during the prohibited hours and proceeded nonetheless (this is recklessness; Sansregret v. The Queen, [1985] 1 SCR 570 ). Based on the facts as you've presented in the hypothetical, you may have ruled out the possibility that Alice was reckless. Although, depending on the time of year, it may be that the sun sets around 9pm, which may present some awareness of the risk that you have not accounted for in your hypothetical. Mens rea if specified If the text of the statute does specify a mens rea then that is what the prosecution needs to show. For example, if one is prohibited from doing XYZ while &quot;knowing&quot; that it is after 9pm, then the prosecution will have to demonstrate actual subjective knowledge of the time, or wilful blindness (which Canadian law takes to impute knowledge: Briscoe). Additional burdens to make use of some mistakes of fact Some offences put an even higher burden on the accused in order to rely on a mistake of fact. In sexual offences where the age of the complainant is relevant (e.g. that they 14 or younger, or 16 or younger, or 18 or younger), the accused cannot make out a mistake-of-age defence without showing they took reasonable steps to ascertain the age (see Criminal Code, s. 150.1).1 Presumptive mens rea for regulatory offences is much lower: strict liability, subject to a due-diligence defence However, if this were a public-welfare/regulatory offence, like a provincial traffic law, or a licensing restriction on an aviation licence, or municipal by-law, there is no mens rea presumption. Rather, public-welfare/regulatory offences prima facie fall into the category of strict liability offences, subject only to a due-diligence defence (R. v. Sault Ste. Marie, [1978] 2 SCR 1299). Alice would have to show that she had a &quot;reasonable belief in facts which, if true, would have rendered the act innocent&quot;. What it means to have a &quot;reasonable belief in facts&quot; is very fact-specific.2 Alice has to hold the belief herself, and the trier of fact must accept that a reasonable person would also have held that belief. Just as in the case for recklessness, I can imagine that the timing of sunset might pose a problem for a due-diligence defence in your particular example. Absolute liability If the penalties for the offence do not include the risk of imprisonment, the offence can even be declared to be an absolute liability offence, in which due diligence is not even a defence (Re B.C. Motor Vehicle Act, [1985] 2 SCR 486). 1. For example, simply relying on a complainant's &quot;language and statements indicating that she could be 14 years of age or older did not constitute taking reasonable steps or all reasonable steps to ascertain her true age in all the circumstances, especially after being warned by her mother to stop all contact or she would call the police and stating that the complainant was way too young for him&quot; (R. v. Dragos, 2012 ONCA 538). 2. For example, for the sale of alcohol, &quot;when the individual clearly appears to be underage, ... a duly diligent permittee would require at least two more pieces of ID confirming that the person was not a minor, question the individual about the ID, then decide if it is reasonable to serve the individual alcohol versus the youthful appearance of the individual&quot; (Citynski Hotels Ltd. v. Saskatchewan, 2003 SKQB 314).
There are two common defenses to defamation (there are others): That what you said is true. That what you said cannot be reasonably interpreted as a factual claim. If after examining the totality of the circumstances, a fact-finder (judge or jury) sees your statement to be an expression of opinion rather than a factual claim about the subject, you would not be found to have defamed the subject. The opinion defence doesn't have a bright line rule. In your example, I think it is clearly on the side of opinion. However, if you were to say something like "Douglas Dunce, Apple's Chief Engineer, has an IQ of 76", that would be almost certainly be deemed a factual claim. The leading case here is Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. The court held that "statements that cannot reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts about an individual are protected". Other summaries of this defence: http://www.defamationlawblog.com/2009/01/fact-vs-opinion-setting-the-record-straight/ http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news-media-law/news-media-and-law-summer-2011/opinion-defense-remains-str
The defence in a criminal case has no obligation to inform the prosecution of anything. The onus is on the prosecution to provide the evidence to convict and the defence doesn't have to and indeed shouldn't help them do it. The defence can and probably would use conflicting statements by a prosecution witness to discredit that witness in the eyes of the jury. These do not have to be material to the case: just showing the witness is inconsistent in general is helpful.
Laws criminalizing perjury are not about being mistaken or less believable in your testimony. The crime is, very narrowly, stating something which you do not believe to be true, while under oath. If you make a statement that happens to be untrue but you believe it is true (you are mistaken), that is not perjury. In the US, moreover, you have to assert something literally untrue, not simply say something that could be interpreted as being untrue. Rental arbitration hearings are nothing special, except that witnesses may or may not be sworn under the particular state's laws. If a witness is sworn and unambiguously asserts "Jones gave Smith $1,000 at that time", and another sworn witness asserts "Jones did not give Smith any money at that time", that might suggest that one witness testified as to something that they did not believe to be true. It might also show that they were standing in different places. Even if the circumstances show that the two witnesses observed the same facts, you would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that one party knew at the time that their statement was false. It is also possible that one witness made mis-remembered or misinterpreted what they saw. They might say or write something else (under oath, or elsewhere) that establishes that they knew better. An example is US v. DeZarn, which clearly established that the defendant could not have believed the statement that he testified to. With no official record of what a party testified to, it may not possible to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that a party committed perjury, since it can be reasonable to doubt claims of what he actually testified to. The defendant's attorney may, however, have to create such a doubt. Some answers could be perjurous if the question and answer are short enough, for example "Did you cash the check?" "No", if witnesses to the hearing testify convincingly that this exchange took place.
The law is really bad at protecting whistleblowers From my understanding of US law, this is not unauthorised access to a computer: the reporter made a legitimate request to a remote computer, that computer provided data,the reporter accessed the supplied data on their own computer. However, pointing out the failures of people in power is fraught even if it is not illegal. It is certainly within the Governor’s power to authorise an investigation of the reporter. On the face of the law, it seems reasonable to suspect that what was done might be a violation so there is nothing legally wrong with initiating an investigation. I suspect that such a broad interpretation of the law would fall foul of the First Amendment which may partly explain why it wasn’t prosecuted: the government doesn’t want to find out. Similarly they can issue press releases, which, due to the First Amendment, don’t have to be true, just not defamatory. Saying it’s a possible violation is true and not defamatory. Saying the reporter was an evil person who is only doing this for political purposes is a statement of opinion and not defamatory. It’s a fact of the world that people with power can use that power in ways that are malicious, unethical, and unfair but not necessarily illegal.
No. The law would be void for vagueness. Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926): [T]he terms of a penal statute [...] must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties… and a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law. The example of the "well known but hidden stop sign" appears to allow for arbitrary prosecution and should also be void.
The general rule is, anything is allowed unless it is forbidden (and not that you can only do things that are expressly permitted). The logical structure of law may be a bit more challenging than procedural programming logic, since it may require a global knowledge and evaluation of the entire code (typically but not absolutely, the scope of the search for "unless otherwise" conditions is restricted to "in this chapter"). In other words, the law is a set of propositions which must all be true, and unlike actual execution of instructions in a sequence, law is to be interpreted simultaneously but hierarchically (that is: the order in which clauses are written is not significant). The appearance that the law is self-contradictory is largely illusory, though the resolution of the conflict may require a careful reading of the law and knowledge of jurisdictional hierarchy (federal law is superior to state law, which entails a particular resolution of the apparent conflict). Sometimes there are real conflicts, which usually result from using words in conflicting ways (note the practice of re-defining words "in this chapter/section/title"). The reason why law is not a science is that law is normative, not descriptive: it dictates what is allowed (a determination made through the political process), and does not attempt to discover what independently is. The reason why the legal process cannot be implemented in software is that software does not yet correctly interpret natural language, and law is written in natural language following interpretations based on judgments of what choices a reasonable would make. Perhaps if you propose a piece of law that you think is contradictory, it would be possible to show how the contradiction is illusory.
As far as I know, every jurisdiction in America limits perjury to cases of lying under oath. Because it seems unlikely that the driver would be under oath at this point, you would probably lack probable cause to make an arrest. At the same time, many states have separate laws addressing the making of false reports, lying to an officer, etc. I'd imagine most jurisdictions would have a law supporting an arrest for lying at the scene, even if not for perjury.