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Originally Posted by drinkeii
Which explains why we have such a messed up legal system. The law is the law - don't break it, and you shouldn't get in trouble - break it, and you should. Even exceptions should be (and usually are) codified, such as killing someone to keep from being killed not being as bad.
If we can't call everything, why have all those rules? Just throw out the ones that we shouldn't call.. oh wait - that's my whole premise - people do this, which affects the game, and shouldn't.
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It is called INTENT AND PURPOSE.
Even the legal system is not as you suggest. Time and time again, it has been reinforced that the laws of the land are merely guides that a jury can set aside if they feel it is unjust or inappropriate.
Life (and basketball) is simply too complicated to legislate all the possibilities with all the nuances and subtleties necessary to maintain a viable society (game).
As a parallel to the legal system, we are both the police, judge, and jury where the rules makers are the parallel of the legislatures.
Statements by Supreme Court Justices and Founding Fathers on the matter:
JOHN ADAMS (1771): It's not only ....(the juror's) right, but his duty, in that case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.
JOHN JAY (1794): The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1920): The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both the law and the facts.
BYRON WHITE (1975): The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power--to make available the common sense judgement of the community as a hedge against the overzealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps over
conditioned or biased response of a judge.
4TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS (United States v. Moylan, 417F.2d1006, 1969): "If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence...If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision."