They put a fucking 17 YEAR OLD in JAIL for this?!

[Aliantha]

They all have bearing on the conversation, but that's ok. Feel free to ignore them and display your ignorance a little more.

Your age leads to your experience. Your knowledge of law leads to how the law is interpreted, which tw has tried to explain to you. Whether you agree with it or not, laws do have different interpretations, and that is where the 'spirit' of each individual law becomes applicable. Mentioned in another thread is a situation where a prisoner used anti discrimination laws in order to be served halal food. In this case, the spirit of the law was not designed to be abused in this manner, although the letter of the law was followed in order for this criminal to achieve a favourable outcome.

So you see, it works both ways. Sometimes criminals benefit from using the letter of the law when in fact, the spirit of the law was ignored. Alternatively, people who are charged under the letter of the law would have been better served had the spirit of the law been taken into consideration.

As to you declining to answer whether you have ever committed any minor crimes. Perhaps underage drinking? Well, that only points to the hypocrisy of your argument if you're arguing in favour of the letter of the law.