Ambiguity In Criminal Justice

What is Statutory Interpretation? Statutory interpretation may be required where complexity and uncertainty arises as to “what the section provides” and to whom is “within the provisions”. There are several instances where judges call for statues to be interpreted further; Such as “failure of legislation to cover a specific point, a broad term, ambiguity, a drafting error, new developments, and changes in the use of language” . Ambiguity is often a cause of dispute where a statute can have more than one meaning and therefore can directly affect the outcome of a case dependant on which meaning is used. Statutes in some cases tend to be extremely vague and ambiguous enough to support more than one interpretation. In such cases, it is at the

But once the court interprets the statute, other courts do not go through the exercise again; other courts will enforce the statute as it was interpreted by the other court.

The Rule of Lenity : in construing an ambiguous criminal statute, a court should resolve the ambiguity in favor of the defendant. Given prosecutorial discretion, legislatures have a natural bias toward over-criminalization. Courts are a good deal less prone to that bias. In some cases conduct is only arguably a breach of the criminal law, and the applicability of the doctrine of negligence per se can be determined only after the statute has been interpreted.

COMMENTARY

This paper is based upon James C. Quarles’s article “Some Statutory Construction Problems and Approaches in Criminal Law”. In this article James questions the need for strict construction of criminal law in common law countries and whether courts should stick to rule of strict construction. Rule of strict construction of criminal statutes has a long history, its origin is not very

United States, The intermediate appellate court expressed its view of strict construction of the statute thus: "Appellant contends that, since the current proceedings are criminal, he is entitled to a strict construction of the Act, with proof of the violation, if any, beyond a reasonable doubt. Courts for a long time have been committed to the doctrine of giving statutes intended to protect the public health a very liberal construction."

McBoyle case, The court strictly construed a statute prohibiting the transportation in interstate commerce of stolen "motor vehicles," defined by the act as including "an automobile, automobile truck, automobile wagon, motor cycle, or any other self-propelled vehicle not designed for running on rails," and came to the conclusion that the statute did not apply to an airplane. Courts understood that "it is not likely that a criminal will carefully consider the text of the law before he murders or steals."

Legislature should give fair warning "in language that the common world will understand, of what the' law intends to do if a certain line is