What the law is can't be realistically argued. What the law is is a function of what a prosecutor, jury, and judge collectively are willing to let a conviction go forward on.
This is what bugs me about common law. You can't take a statute at face value anymore once a sufficient amount of case law comes into the picture, and there is no active effort to reconcile the original statute with the reality of the case law it spawns.
This is what bugs me about common law. You can't take a statute at face value anymore once a sufficient amount of case law comes into the picture, and there is no active effort to reconcile the original statute with the reality of the case law it spawns.