Posted on 08/21/2007 6:46:57 AM PDT by KingSnorky
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said Monday that quarterback Jimmy Clausen's citation for transporting alcohol as a minor is a simple case of ignorance of the law.
"I think it's out of ignorance -- and by ignorance I mean lack of knowledge," Weis said. "I don't think he was defiantly trying to get himself into trouble with the law."
Weis said he himself didn't know it was illegal for someone who's underage -- Clausen is 19 -- to drive someone who is of legal drinking age to a liquor store to buy alcohol. He used the analogy of a friend of his son's driving the coach to a supermarket to buy a six pack of beer.
Still, Weis said it was a mistake.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
I have been thinking about this a lot lately- it used to be said the “Ignorance of the law is no excuse” but in this day and age of hundreds of thousands of laws and law boioks how can it NOT be an excuse?
How can you break the law if you don’t know it is a law?
I sure as heck would not have expected it to be against the law for a legal age DRIVER to transport someone who is of legal drinking age who purchases alcohol.. wth???
>>I sure as heck would not have expected it to be against the law for a legal age DRIVER to transport someone who is of legal drinking age who purchases alcohol.. wth???<<
In this case, I totally agree. Makes me wonder if there’s a similar law there regarding cigarettes.
That's pretty much what we all mean by ignorance Charlie.
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers.”
Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”
Even judges have forgotten the meaning of that phrase. It was not intended to imply that everyone needs to be a lawyer, but rather that if someone was doing something immoral, but didn't know that there was a law against the act, that ignorance of the law was no excuse since they shouldn't have been doing it anyways.
Um Charlie everyone knows what the drinking age is. IT IS POSTED EVERYWHERE.
How is that relevant. No one involved was cited for underage drinking, or even purchasing for underage drinking.
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