Principle of Legality and the Principle of Lenity

Lenity refers to a “common law principle which was the traditional rule for construing convicts and although generally acknowledged the rule is by no means adhered to worldwide” (Robinson and Paul H, 345). This rule serves the main aim of this rule is to provide adequate notice to defendants and to emphasise the concept that only the legislative arm of a government has the power to define illegitimate activities by ways of separation of powers as provided for under the federal system of government. The rule of lenity traces its origin in England in the eighteenth century as a judicial conception to decrease the number of executions brought about by violations of the numerous capital offenses set by the country’s legislative body. In the United States the rule of lenity together with other statutory provisions performs several function including the constitutional principles of, equal protection, due process, separation of powers and providing for the legality of criminal statutes. The disclosure of criminalization by the Congress was also viewed as a benefit of the rule. The rule requires that any ambiguous criminal laws to be interpreted in favour of the defendants in the event they are subjected to them. The United States Supreme court has described the rule to only apply when the equipoise of competing cannot be resolved under normal circumstances and is also used as a last resort.

Principle of legality

The principle of legality as in criminal law, is intended to assure the pre-eminence of the law in criminal trials, so that neither state trial nor respondents are subjected to any form of arbitrary bias while in administrative law it is appreciated in the aspiration for state officers to be legally bound by and invoke the rule of law rather than acting upon impulse and or their own yearnings by swearing an oath of office (Jeffries, John Calvin 190). As such proponents of the principle are ordinarily against discretionary powers

The principle of legality seeks to ensure that no respondent may be castigated arbitrarily or unintentionally by a governing body. This implies that an individual cannot be convicted of a crime that has never been decreed within the public domain, nor by any legal statute that is exceptionally vague, nor by a retributive law that is enacted retroactively to outlaw a deed that was not illegal at the period it ensued. It requires the judiciary to always act in support of the respondents during the process of inferring the various legal statutes, and prohibits affirmation of guilt without a clear and concrete validation of this punishment hence ensuring the policy of innocence until proven guilty.

This principle stipulates that no individual is to be greater than the law thus implies means that even in the most inexplicable circumstances, ignorance of the law is virtually by no means accepted as a valid justification, with the exception of in the very extraordinary events of Mistake of Law.

In the occurrence that a given legal statute is clearly legislated and comprehensively adopted, then all persons are bound by that law by virtue of being within the confines of that jurisdiction, irrespective of whether or not they have particular awareness of the law. The ignorance of any given law may alleviate sternness of guilt, probably reducing the degree of menus rea from deliberately committing a crime to casually committing a criminal conduct, but proscribed law in the United States stipulates that lack of knowledge almost on no instance equates innocence. This principle therefore embraces the argument that a culprit’s personal understanding does not define what they can and cannot do, but the statutes of the given country.

The principle defines what can be done and what not while giving specifics on what is criminal and can be punishable by law. It is the foundational doctrine of any country’s legal system and us such supersedes the interest of punishing guilty offenders. It provides the following guiding principles;

All individuals irrespective of their societal standing or financial status should be given the ability to understand criminal statutes including the punishment to be accorded to perpetrators of the offender.

Criminal statutes need to be clear enough to ensure that major decisions are not left in the hands of the judiciary or executive arms of government.

That when a court gives an interpretation of a legal statute, they should lean in favour of the defendants thereby holding true the argument of innocence until one is proven guilty in a court of law.

Rationale for application of legality principle

            The principle of legality provides checks on the government and state agencies to ensure that they do not abuse their enemies using the criminal justice system and therefore seeks to maximize the personal freedoms and liberties as provided for in the legal statutes by minimizing the possibility of individuals breaking the law without any prior notice or knowledge of there being such a law.

            It gives adequate information as regards what should be considered as criminal act and the corresponding consequences or punishments that would accompany the occurrence of such conduct irrespective of the circumstances; a vital attribute for both retributive and utilitarian justifications of the judicial structure.

            The arguments provided for this law however may be seen as weak and unsatisfactory in meaning due to the fact that very few people if any rarely look at penal codes before deciding on their intended actions (Kahan and Dan M. 116). Its however important to note that retroactive laws are never applied since constitutional law forbids their application.

The Moskal Vs United states Case

Moskal’s arguments in resisting the construction of the language of “falsely made” where he states that government officials who were responsible for allotting the washed titles were unaware that they were integrating false odometer readings did not merit given that the items he was referring to were transported in his full knowledge which is punishable as by law as fraud while the state officials had no knowledge of what purpose the odometers were going to serve.

The petitioner’s suggestion to a shortcut in the case by arguing that other courts had read the case as a matter of counterfeiting and forgery was dealt a blow when the Congress in 1939, motivated by the propagation of interstate structures for passing counterfeit securities passed a bill that added the clause relating to “falsely made, forged or counterfeited securities” as an alteration to the National Stolen Property Act.

While at it, Moskal the petitioner also concedes to the fact that his actions of engaging in ‘title washing’ is a fraudulent act which involved securities which are dispersed among states in so as to evade detection or arrest. Earlier, the Congress had enacted the relevant clause so as to assist the states in spotting and bringing to book convicts who engaged in counterfeited securities which was one of the most widespread form of interstate fraud and which was completely under state law; these criminals deliberately utilize the channels of regional trade to make a successful exit and thus make the state’s detecting and corrective procedures ineffective.

Moskal maintains that even if the Court of Appeal disagrees with his disputation that his actions fall outside forgery or fraud, the court should reverse his sentence under the rule of lenity since according to him, the rationale of the rule of lenity is that it is wrong to expect individuals to follow the law when it is unclear or vague in this respect. He provides that in this scenario, the law is unclear; the array of constructions and court decisions that each side uses to contradict each other is evidence of such ambiguity. However, the United States Constitution counteracts his argument by providing that under the Appeal Court practice, the rule of lenity applies only to incidences of grievous ambiguity; a grievous ambiguity only occurs if a court has little information with regards to certain arguments or cases and can only make a stab in the dark as to what was the intention of the congress. The Constitution argues that the statute’s “language, context, history and purpose” all indicate that there is no such vagueness in this case but a mere difference and conceivable interpretation which would not require application of the rule.

The petitioner’s argument with regards to the odometer readings being altered outside the state boundary also holds no merit following amendments in the National Stolen Property Act which contradicted his construction and further describes him as a ‘patient fraudster or forger’ in reference to the ruling made in the case of McElroy v. United States.

From the above constructions, I hereby support the Appeals Court ruling and state that due diligence and proper reviewing of the legal statutes and provisions was conducted.

Justification of the rule of lenity

The rule of lenity is justified in that the criminal law should provide fair notice to citizens of which actions it will punish. Due to the grave consequences of a criminal conviction, the legislature owes a duty to citizens of making clear those acts for the commission of which the citizen may lose their life or liberty as per the federal laws. In case the law-making body has instead been ambiguous, the rule of lenity ensures fair notice by assuming a narrow interpretation of the statutory language it prevents judicial usurpation of the legislature to determine what conduct is criminal at any one point (Greenfield and Elliot 58). In this capacity, in the absence of such a clear judgment in determination of a criminal law, a broad interpretation of an ambiguous criminal statute raises the possibility that expansive judicial elucidations will create punishments not originally intended by the legislature.

It justifies structural concerns of the United States constitution intended to adopt a clear system of separation of power and its connection with provision of checks and balances. It thus provides for the basis of legislative supremacy and non-delegation of powers and duties.

In addition, the certainty offered by the principle of lenity augments the efficient operation of the criminal justice structure encouraging clarity and reducing litigation over the meaning of such statutes.

The rule of lenity ensures the provisions of the statutes with respect to individual liberties are protected since a mandatory minimum sentences with its serious consequences can only be imposed upon acceptance by the congress which is the body mandated to legislate laws.

Lenity usually provides an ideal solution to the problem of equity balancing under exceedingly broad or equivocal statutes as just as with the plurality realized in the Santos court.

Legislative supremacy with regards to the rule of lenity presents it as a guarantee or security of sorts that the courts of law will not further in the interpretation of criminal law than was intended by requiring that they adopt narrow interpretations automatically. In this view, criminal law making is a prerogative of the congress and us such no other body is mandated to carry out any legislative processes with regards too criminal law.

The principle of lenity also promotes legislative supremacy since it requires that the Congress leads from the front in matters of criminal law and thereby forego judicial review in defining criminal obligations and in turn facilitates adoption of implied delegation leading to reduction of institutional costs of legislating.

The rule of lenity is also justified with regards to recently increasing concerns on how to deal with terrorism by issuing law-provided sentence while at the same time protecting individual liberties that include the right to fair hearing and judgement as provided for in the Constitution. Thus the immigration rule of lenity only comes at the right time in the wake of increased incidences of terrorism.

Shortcomings of the rule of lenity

The rule does not provided the basis or rationale of determining the degree or vagueness in any given legal statutes thus raising the possibility of the judicial arm erring in the dispensation of law hence the possibility of infringing on one’s personal liberties which is an aspect of the law that the judiciary itself is mandated to protect.

Adding to the intricacy of the matter is that vagueness in the legal statutes are unavoidable, and particularly so in a governmental state where the Congress often does not have the time or proclivity to legislate with precision. Congress could categorise whatever interpretative regime it wished courts to apply to solve statutory obscurities, however it has not done so and is not probable to do so leading to the possibility of biasness in dispensation of the law.

The resolve of the conflict between the immigration rule of lenity and Chevron, as well as between Chevron and other canons of argumentation, depends on the legality and the appeal of courts considering public values and ideals during processes of interpreting statutes and whether such a practice corresponds to the apportionment of interpretive authority commanded by Chevron.

The rule of lenity provides for acceptance of vagueness in a given legal statute, these loophole of vagueness in laws may sometimes be exploited by police officers and prosecutors alike to discriminate against individuals.

The ideal behind statutory clarity is far from the reality on the ground since most people usually lack the time, training or financial abilities to conduct actual research on criminal laws before taking action; this may result to incidences of miscarriage of justice.

Due to the fact that statutes might be interpreted in different ways depending on jurisdictions and even the types of courts, it is possible that lenity can cause scenarios of courts acting contrary to legislative intentions and as such, several states and even Model Panel Code have rejected the rule of lenity.

The rule of lenity stipulates that in the event that there’s a tie between the government and a defendant, the defendant wins. It is only applied where the tie is unbreakable and the court is right to the most possible of extremes with its verdict.

Vague statutes violate the provisions of the constitution given that in most cases they turn out to have a construing effect or impairing effect to an important legal provision such as the freedom of speech or that of assembly.

There exists a form of conflict between the immigration canon of lenity and the chevron thus the courts are expected to consider the rule of lenity and canons in a general approach when revising agency interpretations of the law; this is a time consuming and demanding task that may be overlooked in certain scenarios resulting to the possibility of misconstruing justice.

By a careful analysis of the above arguments on the justification and the shortcomings of the principles of lenity and legality, it is therefore acceptable to support the argument that the law should concern itself with the two legal principles.

WORKS CITED

Scalia, Antonin. A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law: Federal Courts and the Law. Princeton University Press, 1998.

Kahan, Dan M. “Lenity and Federal Common Law Crimes.” The Supreme Court Review (1994): 345-428.

Greenfield, Elliot. “Lenity Exception to Chevron Deference, A.” Baylor L. Rev. 58 (2006): 1.

Allen, Francis A. “Erosion of Legality in American Criminal Justice: Some Latter-Day Adventures of the Nulla Poena Principle, The.” Ariz. L. Rev. 29 (1987): 385.

Westen, Peter. “Two rules of legality in criminal law.” Law and Philosophy 26.3 (2007): 229-305.

Jeffries, John Calvin. “Legality, Vagueness, and the Construction of Penal Statutes.” Virginia Law Review (1985): 189-245.

Robinson, Paul H. “Fair Notice and Fair Adjudication: Two Kinds of Legality.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review (2005): 335-398.

Hester, Conrad. “Reviving Lenity: Prosecutorial Use of the Rule of Lenity as an Alternative to Limitations on Judicial Use.” Rev. Litig. 27 (2007): 513.”Https://www.google.com/search?q=principle+of+lenity&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8.” Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.