Saturday, May 7, 2011

Osama is Bad Case Law

 Famously "hard cases make bad law" Difficult cases cause the clarity of the law to be obscured by exceptions and strained interpretations. Similarly Easy Moral cases make bad law. Osama in the popular scale of ultimate evil villain is in the murky Hitler category. Intuitively and a-priori we all know and feel that killing Osama was more then justified - Just like killing Hitler would be (no trial needed). However,  finding the exact legal justification is going to lead to some very bad precedents. 

And so basically - this is a clear case where the uniqueness of the case matter, should not be used as a general precedent. 

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