Ilya Somin analyzes an unfortunate legal situation at great length on The Volokh Conspiracy:
In debates over issues such as undocumented immigration, the War on Drugs, and others, we often hear the claim that the government should “just enforce the law.” If anyone breaks the law, the state is obligated to enforce it against them if it finds out about the violation, and the perpetrators have no right to complain, because they deserve whatever punishment they get.
Perhaps so. But this story about a woman who may be subject to charges for sheltering pets during Hurricane Florence highlights the flaws in that way of thinking:
And Somin then finds a number of problems with the blind application of law – but none are my immediate reaction. Don’t doubt it, I agree with Somin that this lady, Tammie Hedges, who runs Crazy’s Claws n Paws, a non-profit group, should be excused for having broken the law, but Somin doesn’t touch on my reasoning.
Ideal legal systems are designed to enforce laws during periods of normalcy, and the laws they contain are promulgated in order to continue that normalcy. We adjust them to change what we see as normalcy to be more congruent with a system of justice, because we believe that a normalcy more congruent with justice is more conducive to a society that is peaceful, prosperous (due to a lack of internal tension / dissension; external pressures are a different matter, often unaddressable through a legal system concerned with internal matters).
But when that baseline of normalcy is shattered, whether through an act of Nature or the malice of humanity, the applicability of certain laws may become questionable. Let me offer a limited example: a confrontation between a two people, one an aggressor. He (statistically the most likely gender) aggressively offers violence against the other, who replies in kind and kills the first. We have laws against taking the life of another, but normalcy has been shattered in this case by the first man offering deadly violence against the second, and when the second kills the first, we excuse it, after a proper investigation and possible judicial hearing, as self-defense.
Hurricane Florence certainly qualifies as a natural disaster. Ms Hedges found herself in a situation where she, and she alone, could offer shelter to a collection of pets who would otherwise be forced to fend for themselves in a situation in which many of them would perish. If we accept that pets have become limited family members, and many Americans, such as myself, have done so, then her choice to offer her physical facility as a temporary shelter is not an abrogation of law, but a sacrifice on her part ethically acceptable and quite admirable, even if she views it as simply the right thing to do.
Certainly, my position, assumed without caution, could lead to abuses, and I am not a lawyer, but rather a software engineer (which may explain my abstract approach to the theoretical framework of the law), so beyond special hearings and recognition that legal systems have limited applicability in time of emergency, I’m not sure how to proceed in a manner that is just, safe, and respectable, but then that’s why we train lawyers in the first place.
Ms Hedges should be freed of all concerns in this matter.
