It’s not just one law that I would change, it’s the use of an idea over 2000 years old as a foundational leg of our legal system when it is obviously out of place and time. It has been used as a tool to create biased laws and apply those laws to marginalized members of our society.

“Ignorantia legis neminem excusat” (Ignorance of the law is no excuse from the law) is that tenet. While an AI overview of just 1 state, New Mexico, and only 2 categories of law states:

• Because traffic laws are subdivided into numerous sections and articles, there is no single, easily cited “total number,” but they span hundreds of regulations within the New Mexico Statutes Chapter 66, Article 7. 
• It is not possible to provide a single, exact number for all “business laws” in New Mexico, as this encompasses thousands of individual statutes, rules, and regulations spanning across different chapters of the New Mexico Statutes Annotated (NMSA) 1978, as well as municipal ordinances and administrative codes. 

This may have been a reasonable requirement under ancient Roman Law, Hebrew Law, or Greek Law, but it is categorically impossible for a citizen to know any and all laws that pertain to their daily life. The law makers know and understand this. Granted, people claiming ignorance as an excuse to escape consequences for their actions will always be a problem. It is still a problem even with this tenet as a basis for our current legal system. Many laws that currently exist on the books are antiquated and are only pursued in targeted cases and are used for the purpose of harassment.

Laws should not be used as ‘gotcha’ opportunities, or as a way to harass marginalized communities.

From Wikipedia: “The doctrine assumes that the law in question has been properly promulgated—published and distributed, for example, by being printed in a government gazette, made available over the Internet, or printed in volumes available for sale to the public at affordable prices. In the ancient phrase of Gratian, Leges instituuntur cum promulgantur (‘Laws are instituted when they are promulgated’).^[5] For a law to obtain the binding force which is proper to a law, it must be applied to the men who have to be ruled by it. Such application is made by their being given notice by promulgation. A law can bind only when it is reasonably possible for those to whom it applies to acquire knowledge of it in order to observe it, even if actual knowledge of the law is absent for a particular individual. A secret law is no law at all.”

Before the internet, the local libraries were a common point of public promulgation. But the libraries did not keep the legal books up to date. Many of the law books, especially those having to do with local laws were incomplete or missing entirely.

With the advent of the internet, and now AI, even the better promulgation of law can be suspect because it can be difficult to ascertain whether the source is reliable and if the law being cited is local, state, or federal.The use of executive orders in place of law is further muddying the waters due to their questionable legality, possible over reach of governmental authority and ongoing unsettled litigation.These issues leave many of our citizens under vague and often conflicting laws while they wait for clarification.

This baseline standard is in conflict with the presumption of innocence. If we are to assume that everyone knows every law that might apply to them in any situation, and jurisdiction, then they are already assumed guilty of knowingly and willfully defying said law. One cannot be innocent if one is already assumed to be guilty. Such is the basis for a speed trap.* A city law may require that posted speed limits may not exceed a 10 mph variation from the previous speed within the city boundaries. But on roads leading to the city, especially rural roads, there are no required signs marking the speed limits and the assumed speed is only what is deemed safe for conditions or 55 mph maximum. With this legal combination when the city boundary meets the rural road, the speed may drop as much as 30 mph, or more, without warning. It becomes the perfect place for local police to enforce the city speed limit, catching the unwary who will have no recourse due to the ignorance of the law is no excuse clause.

*Note the specificity – it’s a pretty common occurrence and it was what started my journey of trying to find physical copies of the law.

A law forbidding high heels on city sidewalks as an excuse to harass and arrest prostitutes was on the books in one city for decades. Was it enforced on everyone wearing high heels? Of course not. Another law forbid tossing a football in a city park. Why? Maybe to lessen the chances of injury or limit tort liabilities, but these types of laws can be used ‘when appropriate’ by authorities. Laws that are left to the judgement of authorities on whether they are enforced are often used to discriminate against groups that are considered unwelcome. Either there is a law or there is not. This idea of laws as handy leverage against those we don’t agree with, or don’t like, uses the legal lack of protection from the law due to ignorance of the law as a weapon.

We really need to come up with a better solution than this. Basing so much of our legal system on ancient norms might not be reasonable. We have, after thousands of years of learning, hopefully moved beyond the limited viewpoints of a world that believed the sun was pulled by a chariot across the sky.