Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse

Have you ever heard anyone claim "ignorance of the law is no excuse"? Many Americans grow up understanding the law as a series of traditions and know what is legal and illegal only through word of mouth. Of course, many laws are universal and obvious, going back even to religious traditions. Also, have you ever heard anyone say "judges should not legislate from the bench, it is their job to interpret the law not to produce it." You could go through your whole life not realizing that the majority of detail in US laws are not actually written in the "law books" but written instead in decisions by judges. This is because for every state except Lousiana, the United States uses a system of common law as opposed to civil law. Knowing what the law is, in some circumstances, requires extensive research. It's interesting that in rare cases, the definition of the "law" is not even agreed upon among the top experts, for instance our U.S. Supreme Court judges. Check out Wikipedia:Common_law for more information on this subject.