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I once asked on free law advice website how do I find if certain paragraph of certain law is still in effect (i.e. was not overridden by newer law) and the lawy

by dvh 2y ago

I once asked on free law advice website how do I find if certain paragraph of certain law is still in effect (i.e. was not overridden by newer law) and the lawyer just didn't understand what I want. I think he couldn't comprehend that someone would just want to point at a paragraph and asks "is this still a law?" As a programmer this seems like essential information to know, right? In code I can write "asdf" on the line and if it's still used it fails to compile or throws a runtime error but in law there is no such thing. And there is no incentive to simplify it.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
I'm going to throw out the worst analogy I'll probably ever make: The law is written in higher-level languages, and the courts are the compilers. It's just that most written laws probably never go through the compilation stage, until it becomes a problem for someone.
crazygringo 2y ago
Isn't that what law codification is? It assembles and organizes all the laws, removing anything that has been repealed. So if you're looking at a codified version, then you know it hasn't been repealed as of its publication. I don't know how often the codified versions get updated, and therefore how long of a lag there can be. Any lawyers here?
- showerst 2y ago
  NAL but I have written legal database software, and helped to get a few bills passed. Codified laws are "full" printings that include new laws that were passed, and laws that were explicitly repealed. This is not the whole scope though: perhaps a court opinion invalidated some law but the legislature hasn't gotten around to removing it. Or perhaps some new interpretation keeps means a law's applicability has changed (this happens a lot with laws that are pre-internet). Sometimes there are old laws that were superseded but never repealed due to obviousness: Laws allowing redlining, penalties for witchcraft, that sort of thing. Though that's more likely at the local level than state. Just looking up the laws on the books is not _that_ helpful to knowing is a specific part applies to you. PS: Laws are generally codified yearly in the US, except the feds who do it a few times a year. States have 'session laws' that are a running collection. These are a pain to 'merge' into the laws, hence Lexis and West having big budgets and large work forces doing it.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Codified laws generally list new laws that were passed, and laws that were explicitly repealed Codes aren’t just lists, not in any state I’ve been in. And annotated codes exist to expand on the case law.
    - showerst 2y ago
      Oops, I meant to say generally 'include', not list. I'll reword that.
webstrand 2y ago
The worst part is, you have to have to actually violate the law to even get standing to ask the court "is this actually illegal".
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  Yeah. I'd like to see a system where a person or organization can put up say $100k, specify an act or series of acts and have it litigated as if it were real. There's no juries or the like as the "facts" are laid down at the start. You win, you get back your money and it becomes part of case law just as if it were real, including any compensation due innocent defendants. (Note that if the state is not required to defend it, they're free to immediately concede, return your money and admit the stated actions are legal.)
  - telotortium 2y ago
    Where are you going to get an appropriate set of facts from, though? You're essentially proposing a legal thought experiment, but thought experiments are notorious for setting up unrealistic sets of facts to be based on - how often does a scenario exactly like the trolley problem arise, and is it even justified to extrapolate any moral conclusions from that to other scenarios? There is a legal saying - "hard cases make bad law". The temptation in your system would be to make hard cases, for the same reason hard cases are prevalent in ethical philosophy. The effect on the resulting law is predictable. So you need to work essentially from cases that have gone through at least court case. That's called an appeal, and it already exists.
    - LorenPechtel 2y ago
      If the facts don't match reality you've gone to all the effort for nothing--people aren't going to do it. And if hard cases make bad law the legislature should do it's job and fix the law!
tpmoney 2y ago
The answer to this is that lawyers spend a lot of money paying for “codified” versions of the law, usually compiled by publishers like LexisNexis or Thompson-Reuters. And those companies in turn spend a lot of money on their own lawyers and developers to try to compile 51+ different formats of documenting and distributing law and law changes into a format that allows lawyers to not only know what the law is NOW but also often more pertinent, what the law WAS at the moment the issue in question occurred. From my time in that world: A) it’s amazing anyone at all is confident about anything B) it’s amazing how bad the states and feds are at getting this information out in any usable form C) it’s amazing how complex the problem domain is and how many exceptions to exceptions to the rules there are D) if you might go to jail over it, you probably want to be paying a lawyer to look it over
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> he couldn't comprehend that someone would just want to point at a paragraph and asks "is this still a law?" What are you pointing at? If it’s in the code, it’s a law. If you’re reading a random bill from who knows when, no, there isn’t an easy answer, it would be like pulling a random git commit and asking what has been rewritten.

by dvh 2y ago

pavel_lishin 2y ago

I'm going to throw out the worst analogy I'll probably ever make: The law is written in higher-level languages, and the courts are the compilers. It's just that most written laws probably never go through the compilation stage, until it becomes a problem for someone.

crazygringo 2y ago

Isn't that what law codification is? It assembles and organizes all the laws, removing anything that has been repealed. So if you're looking at a codified version, then you know it hasn't been repealed as of its publication. I don't know how often the codified versions get updated, and therefore how long of a lag there can be. Any lawyers here?

showerst 2y ago
NAL but I have written legal database software, and helped to get a few bills passed. Codified laws are "full" printings that include new laws that were passed, and laws that were explicitly repealed. This is not the whole scope though: perhaps a court opinion invalidated some law but the legislature hasn't gotten around to removing it. Or perhaps some new interpretation keeps means a law's applicability has changed (this happens a lot with laws that are pre-internet). Sometimes there are old laws that were superseded but never repealed due to obviousness: Laws allowing redlining, penalties for witchcraft, that sort of thing. Though that's more likely at the local level than state. Just looking up the laws on the books is not _that_ helpful to knowing is a specific part applies to you. PS: Laws are generally codified yearly in the US, except the feds who do it a few times a year. States have 'session laws' that are a running collection. These are a pain to 'merge' into the laws, hence Lexis and West having big budgets and large work forces doing it.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Codified laws generally list new laws that were passed, and laws that were explicitly repealed Codes aren’t just lists, not in any state I’ve been in. And annotated codes exist to expand on the case law.
  - showerst 2y ago
    Oops, I meant to say generally 'include', not list. I'll reword that.

webstrand 2y ago

The worst part is, you have to have to actually violate the law to even get standing to ask the court "is this actually illegal".

LorenPechtel 2y ago
Yeah. I'd like to see a system where a person or organization can put up say $100k, specify an act or series of acts and have it litigated as if it were real. There's no juries or the like as the "facts" are laid down at the start. You win, you get back your money and it becomes part of case law just as if it were real, including any compensation due innocent defendants. (Note that if the state is not required to defend it, they're free to immediately concede, return your money and admit the stated actions are legal.)
- telotortium 2y ago
  Where are you going to get an appropriate set of facts from, though? You're essentially proposing a legal thought experiment, but thought experiments are notorious for setting up unrealistic sets of facts to be based on - how often does a scenario exactly like the trolley problem arise, and is it even justified to extrapolate any moral conclusions from that to other scenarios? There is a legal saying - "hard cases make bad law". The temptation in your system would be to make hard cases, for the same reason hard cases are prevalent in ethical philosophy. The effect on the resulting law is predictable. So you need to work essentially from cases that have gone through at least court case. That's called an appeal, and it already exists.
  - LorenPechtel 2y ago
    If the facts don't match reality you've gone to all the effort for nothing--people aren't going to do it. And if hard cases make bad law the legislature should do it's job and fix the law!

tpmoney 2y ago

The answer to this is that lawyers spend a lot of money paying for “codified” versions of the law, usually compiled by publishers like LexisNexis or Thompson-Reuters. And those companies in turn spend a lot of money on their own lawyers and developers to try to compile 51+ different formats of documenting and distributing law and law changes into a format that allows lawyers to not only know what the law is NOW but also often more pertinent, what the law WAS at the moment the issue in question occurred. From my time in that world: A) it’s amazing anyone at all is confident about anything B) it’s amazing how bad the states and feds are at getting this information out in any usable form C) it’s amazing how complex the problem domain is and how many exceptions to exceptions to the rules there are D) if you might go to jail over it, you probably want to be paying a lawyer to look it over

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> he couldn't comprehend that someone would just want to point at a paragraph and asks "is this still a law?" What are you pointing at? If it’s in the code, it’s a law. If you’re reading a random bill from who knows when, no, there isn’t an easy answer, it would be like pulling a random git commit and asking what has been rewritten.